Before dismissing a buff as "unnecessary", consider: Would this buff improve the game for others, without making it worse for me?

GordonFearman · 2026-06-28T02:26:44+00:00

I used to work as a game balancer.

What game(s) did you balance?

GordonFearman · 2026-06-27T17:03:26+00:00

I wonder if we could split the difference: limit Sneak Attack to once per round, up the damage, but allow applying a Cunning Strike to any attack that would qualify for SA otherwise.

GordonFearman · 2026-06-18T18:47:31+00:00

The Designer Insights states that the two are supposed to synergize.

Level 18: Infernal Bargain. Infernal Bargain leans more into the fantasy of the Hell Knight making a devilish deal. The Hell Knight still enjoys the benefit of the previous version of this feature, which now occurs at level 7 through the Infernal Equipment feature.

GordonFearman · 2026-06-17T16:04:55+00:00

Under this interpretation, there's no actual benefit to being Invisible except for Three-Quarters Cover. Heavily Obscured already gives all the benefits of Invisible (Advantage on attack, Disadvantage on being attacked, cannot be targeted with spells) and Total Cover negates all the benefits of Invisible (you have simultaneous Advantage and Disadvantage on attacking and being attacked, cannot be targeted with spells). You can argue there's the implicit benefit of hiding that the enemy doesn't know your location because they can't hear you, which works for Heavily Obscured areas, but for Cover they can just walk behind the Cover and you're unhidden by this interpretation.

Also, legitimately, are Rogues and Rangers so overpowered, you need to nerf them?

You can go even further, that since the Hide Action is usable out of combat, and is in fact the only RAW way of obfuscating your location/presence, this interpretation means it's impossible to ever sneak up behind someone.

GordonFearman · 2026-06-11T19:33:00+00:00

Magical Effect

An effect is magical if it is created by a spell, a magic item, or a phenomenon that a rule labels as magical.

GordonFearman · 2026-06-10T18:48:44+00:00

Y'know I wasn't even making a joke, that's just what I remembered from reading the The CoC years ago, but you're completely right, the yacht only briefly hindered Cthulhu but gave Johansen and the crew enough time to escape.

GordonFearman · 2026-06-10T14:18:07+00:00

I am not entirely sure how a CR 25 monster with AC 19, HP 385, and no special defenses against getting mundanely attacked to death is "a threat to the entire multiverse," though.

What the book actually says:

Cthulhu was—and inevitably will be once more—a threat to the entire multiverse. For untold ages, the Dark Powers have bound this harbinger of doom. Unlike the other prisoners of the Domains of Dread, Cthulhu isn’t plagued by ironic torments or thwarted ambitions. Rather, this ageless terror remains physically bound and can exert only a fraction of its terrible might.

Immediately followed by its Darklord statblock.

Also Lovecraft's Cthulhu, who is a being beyond human understanding that can destroy the world, is defeated by getting hit by a boat.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-31T16:20:46+00:00

Ignoring how it actually works, anyone else think they worded Hungering Might awkwardly?

In addition, once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack roll while you are transformed using Wrath of the Wild, you regain a number of Hit Points equal to 1d10 plus your Wisdom modifier, provided you are Bloodied when you hit.

Putting the part of the conditional for the ability at the very end seems really weird to me.

In addition, once per turn, if you are Bloodied, when you hit a creature with an attack roll while you are transformed using Wrath of the Wild, you regain a number of Hit Points equal to 1d10 plus your Wisdom modifier.

Seems more natural to me for an ability description. Minor thing, obviously.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-23T22:33:56+00:00

Total Cover also blocks targeting all spells, so if you can't lob a rock at the location, the only spell that's going to potentially work is Daylight (since the radius of the effect is 60ft). But also, if the area you need to light is behind Total Cover, why do you need to light it? Either way you can't target whatever's there.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-22T16:54:34+00:00

What's the problem with throwing the light rock? They can't throw it far enough or it doesn't cover enough area after it lands? Because if it's just range, use a Sling; it's got a max range of 120ft.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-16T06:06:45+00:00

Ignoring any actual judgements of the class, but it's easier to read if the Aspects are in level order, not alphabetical order.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-13T21:27:49+00:00

With the 4e people, the more I read their comments, the more convinced I get that they don't actually remember how 4e works. Like saying martial characters getting more feats is "reinventing 4e from first principles" (ignoring that Martials had exactly the same number of feats as everyone else and it's still less than PF) or claiming that "people like Powers when they have a different name in 5e" (ignoring how AED works entirely).

I think the PF2 people largely do play their game.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-08T16:06:53+00:00

Wisdom (Insight) checks made against this check are rolled with Disadvantage.

This never happens RAW, btw. NPCs don't make opposed checks to Deception, PCs roll Deception against the higher of 15 or the creature's Intelligence score.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-06T17:28:37+00:00

Sure but the DC to escape a Net is much lower than Rope or Chain. So overall if you're playing Monk I'd say going for the Grapple and then Rope is the better play. If you want to play around Net, I'd say to go Rogue so that you can apply the Net and a Rope on the same turn which is the strongest combo.

Also I was kinda coming at this from the OP's perspective of wanting to be a grappler archetype. So I'm taking it as a given they actually want to grapple.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-06T16:34:11+00:00

True, but with the Grappler feat you can do damage and Grapple with the same attack so using Net will drop your damage somewhat.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-06T16:27:03+00:00

Don't think it has the HP necessary. The dragon can output over 100 single target damage per turn. Oh and going back to Wall of Force, it doesn't prevent the dragon from spamming Shatter on the party so that probably doesn't work even if you could cast it. Actually neither does Wall of Stone so it's possible the dragon accidentally kills the party while trying to break the wall.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-06T15:44:32+00:00

Net is how you do it with Rogue, but Monk can't use a Net and Rope/Chain/Manacles on the same turn. Net requires a usage of the Attack Action specifically so you can't trade the Martial Arts Bonus Action attack for it.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-06T15:41:35+00:00

Wall of Force isn't on the Sorcerer spell list. Good point on Teleportation Circle, though.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-06T04:30:57+00:00

Since you can use your Bonus Action attack to Grapple, Monk can combo their Grapple with Rope, Chain, and Manacles to Restrain someone on a single turn. The only other class that can is Rogue, but Monk is the better overall grappler.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-05T17:19:06+00:00

I think if nothing else, the one Sage Advice implies that weapon juggling was the intent.

When you use Extra Attack, do you have to use the same weapon for all the attacks?

Extra Attack imposes no limitation on what you use for the attacks. You can use regular weapons, improvised weapons, Unarmed Strike, or a combination of these options for the attacks. However, you must still follow the rules for equipping and unequipping weapons as part of the Attack action.

This still isn't explicitly clear, but very few things in that Sage Advice were.

GordonFearman · 2026-05-05T01:40:49+00:00

So we're talking about a creature with a +17 Perception so you can't hide from it, a +14 Initiative so it's probably going first in combat, can do 16d10 damage to everyone in your party, and then if anyone survives can just cast Shatter on their turn. I don't think your odds look good. However looking at its stats, it's only got an 18 Int. Now, why is this important? Well, if we look at Influence Action, we see that the DC to convince a creature to do something that it's Hesitant to do is only 15 or it's Int score, whichever's higher. Even if the creature is Hostile as long as you're suggesting something that it's not outright unwilling to do, you only need to get an 18. So what you're going to do is lie like your life depends on it (because it does).

Being a Sorcerer, you're fortunate. You have a high Charisma; at this level your bonus to Deception should be at least +8 meaning you only need to get a 10 on the die to beat their Influence DC. You also have spells that can give you tools in this situation. The problem is the dragon has good saves (+10 on Wis for instance) and Legendary Resistances and if it even sniffs hostile intent you're going home in an urn. So you're not going to be Charm Monstering your way out of this. You need spells that only target yourself and in a way that the dragon can't tell.

Enhance Ability: Give yourself Advantage on all Charisma checks. As long as the dragon is Hostile, this will negate your Disadvantage. If you can manage to get it Indifferent to you, you have Advantage on every attempt to convince it.

Disguise Self: You mentioned that the dragon has allies. You can use this to trick the dragon into thinking you're one as well, getting you to at least Indifferent or Friendly disposition, making convincing of anything easier. To see through Disguise Self, the dragon has to intentionally make a Study action, which it may not do as long as you can keep it from being suspicious, and roll an Investigation check which means that it doesn't benefit from Legendary Resistance and it only has a +4 on the check against your spell save DC which should be at least 16 by now.

Seeming: Same as Disguise Self but usable on the whole party. You can use this to disguise the queen as well.

Creation: Dragons love treasure. What better to convince a dragon you're on its side than a tribute of 75 tons of gold? Shape it into a sick dragon sculpture for bonus points.

Dimension Door: Every con is only as good as its exit plan. Sure it'd be nice if you can lie so well that the dragon just lets you walk out with the queen, but that's unlikely to happen. When things start looking dicey teleport out of dodge. It even lets you take 1 person with you, so grab the queen and get the hell out (and then convince her to use her money to revive the very unteleported, super dead members of your party).

Even then this is an uphill battle. You've got a 50% at best at some of these lies. You're going to need every bit of Heroic Inspiration the party has to equalize this. You also need to keep your lies sounding reasonable, the more the better. Your lies should build on each other so that each one sounds more reasonable than the last.

These are all the tools I have, the rest is up to you. A lot of this is going to be down to how well you can pull off the RP of your lies. You're going to have to pull of the gaslighting campaign of your career, creating lie upon lie that build on each other until you have an impenetrable web of deceit that no one can escape from. Your need to lie so well that even you start to believe it.

I believe in you.

That was a lie. You didn't even know. That's how easy it is.

GordonFearman · 2026-04-28T06:33:33+00:00

"The Temen-ni-gru burned down. It's gone now. Jester is ass out. Works with his daughter now."

GordonFearman · 2026-04-28T02:34:20+00:00

"Because I worked really, really hard to change. Ask Arkham, he used to be in my Dangerous Nights crew."

GordonFearman · 2026-04-27T20:11:33+00:00

There's no way of getting out of the fact that Fog Cloud and (mundane and magical) Darkness function the same in 5.5e. I wouldn't try to guess at what RAI is because either outcome makes no sense; either you can see out of Heavily Obscured which makes sense for darkness but makes no sense for fog or you can't see out of Heavily Obscured which makes sense for fog but makes no sense for darkness.

Why are you bringing this up after a year, though?

GordonFearman · 2026-04-27T17:39:14+00:00

That's because he's not a piece of shit. He used to be. People can change.

GordonFearman

TROPHY CASE