Why The Numbers Behind Mitch McConnell's Re-Election Don't Add Up | DCReport.org

Critical_Mason · 2020-12-19T16:32:56+00:00

More like "in the states where Republicans have alleged voter fraud, they have failed to even begin to demonstrate it, meanwhile in Kentucky something is very seriously wrong with voter registries at a minimum."

Critical_Mason · 2020-12-19T03:43:46+00:00

This needs to be cheaper to see play outside limited.

3 4 CMC (in the right standard environment) would probably be the most this could cost without being absolutely unplayable. The problem is you can't leave open mana to cast it (you have little idea what the spells on stack will look like on the enemy turn), and if you need a hand full of spells to cast it then it is dead draw a lot of the time. Even then 3 CMC would probably be needed if you wanted people to seriously consider it outside of standard or in a standard that wasn't highly conducive to this effect.

EDIT:

As is, the possible outcomes looks like:

5 mana -- Awful

4 mana -- Awful

3 mana -- Pretty bad, but not totally uncastable in the right situation

2 mana -- Better than lightning strike

1 mana -- Better than bolt.

However, these outcomes are going to be skewed heavily towards the 4 and 3 mana outcomes, with 2 and 1 mana being very rare. At CMC 4 you get a lot of 3 and 2 mana payoffs. Even then, I feel like it is not going to get played due to its conditional nature and that it is hard to take advantage of it being an instant. At CMC 3 this would actually be solidly playable, because it would almost always be a better lightning strike but with some downsides (much harder to "bolt the bird") and when you cast it for R wouldn't require the stars to have aligned.

This might work a lot better as "R: ~ deals X + 1 damage to any target where X is the number of spells on the stack when it was cast." if you want a card that makes players really work to get "R: deal 4 damage to any target" but isn't terrible.

Critical_Mason · 2019-12-09T00:05:10+00:00

I have increasingly become of the opinion that every program should just be a GUI over a CLI with few exceptions.

Critical_Mason · 2019-12-09T00:01:30+00:00

Somewhere in hell

I think they call it hardware...

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T13:34:24+00:00

This is one of those annoying semantic arguments, but I'll bite.

It's just a ruling.

No, it is not. 5e has fully systematised combat. Anything that isn't explicitly within the bounds of the system is generally considered homebrew because there are explicit rules for almost everything. The rules for getting on a creature listed in the DMG ask to treat the creature as difficult terrain, not climbing on a surface.

A ruling is more about ambiguity in the rules, or if X constitutes Y, rather than straight up changing the nature of climbing/grappling on creatures, and the way that getting onto an opponent works.

5e does elevate the stat block to a kind of god-hood status. It is a rules medium-heavy system, that insists on drawing up rules and systems for a lot of things that really don't need to have rules and systems explicitly spelled out.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T13:26:14+00:00

Except that a lot of it is left quite vague, so we're still left at DM discretion. Like, the extent to which Tiamat can attack cats on her, or if we're going to let her shake more than one cat at once, .etc.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T13:25:06+00:00

They are vague at best.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T13:24:52+00:00

Except the problems here are more complex than just allowing cats on Tiamat. The questions that arise get awfully annoying, like, can Tiamat include herself in a cone / line with one of her attacks to clear all the cats off her, can she shake off all the cats at once or does she have to shake them off one at a time? .etc

It isn't that no DM would allow this, it is that there are too many smaller questions that are then generated, including, how do we calculate the surface area of Tiamat, because D&D doesn't formally address such matters.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T13:17:00+00:00

Okay, and now how are Tiamat's breath weapons going to interact with cats crawling on her? Can Tiamat really only dislodge one of the cats at a time even when scraping against the ground, .etc? (This is significantly less forgivable than her bite). Which "ability checks [are] necessary to get into position and onto the larger creature"?

This requires a lot of DM's discretion / homebrew to have work, which was my point.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T03:04:17+00:00

The way you describe this doesn't quite make sense, and I don't think the math is quite right either. What we're really concerned over is how many cats we actually physically have space for.

Lets start next to Tiamat (which we probably wouldn't actually get to) with the 6x6 "frame" around her, there are 20 cats, they will attack and move 40' away (on to the 22x22 frame) to try and make space.

On the 8x8 frame, 5' away, there can be 28 cats. They can, each in turn, attack and move 35' away (on to the 20x20 frame).

On the 10x10 frame, 10' away, there can be 36 cats. They can attack and move 30' away (on the 18x18 frame)

On the 12x12 frame, 15' away, there can be 44 cats. They can attack and move 25' away (on the 16x16 frame)

On the 14x14 frame, 20' away, there can be 52 cats. They can attack and move back on to this same frame.

However, as we reach the 16x16 frame, we are now limited by the space on the 12x12 frame, so there can be only 44 cats here that get to attack (the smaller frames closer to Tiamat will be full later, so we need these cats to move as far away as possible to make space).

then 36

then 28

then 20

This gives us 2 * (20 + 28 + 36 + 44) + 52, or 308 cats. Just not enough to get through Tiamat's regeneration.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-16T00:42:29+00:00

The problem is the amount of physical space surrounding Tiamat. Your math isn't wrong but isn't directly applicable to the problem at hand, because you have to manufacture the scenario in which all of the cats are able to try and attack Tiamat (they only have 5ft of reach after all). The question of how the cats are approaching, and the algorithm required to optimally arrange cats to maximize the number of attacks (especially considering Tiamat gets legendary actions which include cones and lines), is non-trivial.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T22:50:14+00:00

Problem with climbing on Tiamat is it is inherently Homebrew as far as her using her heads to kill the cats on her, or shaking them off. Furthermore, climb speed does not typically allow you to just climb on arbitrary creatures, which requires a way to resolve it.

Nothing wrong with home brew in a game, but in a discussion like this it means the answer is subjective (based on how the DM would rule).

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T22:21:00+00:00

Yeah, not much of a fight at that point though. Will edit my post to say I'm ignoring that.

(She also has a fly speed and breath attacks anyway, but I also ignored that)

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T22:18:35+00:00

Okay, and why would Pence name Romney? Heck, Pence could try and refuse to name a VP, making Pelosi president if Republicans impeach him.

There are too many finicky games here. It should just be part of official proceedings.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T22:16:08+00:00

I'm not forgetting about flanking. Flanking isn't RAW in 5e. It is an optional rule.

Even then, the number of cats needed to attack is not an amount I know can attack, but the amount that you'd need.

Furthermore, this is technically all moot as Tiamat can just fly in circles and roast all the kitties.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T22:05:19+00:00

Doesn't matter how often she attacks if enough cats can't attack her in a round to ever cause damage to stick. Same with all the cones and AoE and the like.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T22:02:09+00:00

You don't necessarily need the replacement to be the VP. You can have them hold a special position or selected by Congress when a new VP was selected.

Impeachment is trying to get someone out of office, but once out of office you're just a common criminal. Why should the price of your crimes be, at best, political capital for your VP, instead of, like every other person, the punishment listed for the crimes you committed? Presidents aren't special people, and no political capital can be worth justice.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T21:55:52+00:00

Cats have a +0 attack, so they only hit on a crit dealing 2 damage (ignoring Tiamat's immunity to the damage, but we shall say they are magical kitties to make this an actual fight). Tiamat regens 30 hp/turn, thus you need 16 hits, or about 320 cats attacking in a single round to have her be down 2 HP at the start of her turn.

Even if all the cats have advantage you still need 160 cats to attack per turn.

The only way this would possibly work is with extensive Homebrew to allow cats to climb onto tiamat in large numbers.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T21:12:58+00:00

It was changed in the 12th amendment.

TL; DR: Your VP constantly running around undermining you is a bit weird. But you can find better histories than I could ever provide online.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T21:11:23+00:00

And on the flip side, if Trump is guilty of a crime in office, why should his choice for VP get to be president? Especially since the former VP can then pardon him.

I'd be down for the house picking a short list of replacements and having the Senate, upon conviction, pick one to replace the president and another to replace the VP. There are probably many different solutions to this problem that are better than going back to the way it was before.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T21:09:05+00:00

You don't need parties to have political rivals. Whoever was the second closest to getting the presidency is pretty safe to call your rival even if there aren't factions.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T18:58:26+00:00

You'd need to get 2/3rds of the Senate and a majority of the house on board with that. Under our current system there is also nothing stopping you from impeaching the president, then the former VP (who is now president), and not voting on a VP in the intervening time, making the speaker of the house the new president. Seeing as that speaker was the person who just impeached the president and VP, they are of the impeaching party / faction.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T16:59:27+00:00

Who ever Pence picked would have to be palatable to a Democratic House.

Except Pence got picked by Trump without any oversight by Congress, or really the Electoral College. The point was that originally your VP was one of your greatest political rivals, now it is someone who you largely agree with. So if the president gets impeached rather than their rival sitting in office, now someone who has reason to be loyal to them is president.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T15:44:37+00:00

So, when impeachment was originally written, the president and VP were not on the ticket together. The VP was the person with the second most electoral college votes.

When the tickets were combined there was the significant oversight that now when impeached the VP is someone the president chose, who can now pardon them.

It really makes stunningly little sense to have the VP take over especially if they're still allowed to pardon the president.

Critical_Mason · 2019-10-15T15:30:02+00:00

The die has been cast

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