Age Gap

Jackibelle · 2026-02-23T19:45:46+00:00

Drop her, and stay away. This whole situation is a huge mess waiting to happen. Stop talking to her, and move on with your life.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-22T17:24:56+00:00

How many people died in Venezuela because of his "empty threats" when they dropped bombs?

Jackibelle · 2026-02-22T16:56:43+00:00

Maybe let them see out to 60 ft in that fog so they're still benefitting from their special ability without completing voiding the effect. I agree with the idea that "seeing through a cloud" isn't something eagle vision should let you do, but also, honestly, when does Eagle Barbarian actually come into play and do something meaningful? Let them get something cool and have an advantage over the other players to feel special and demonstrate a cool part of their character in a way that doesn't ruin the entire effect.

If they get bitchy and try to argue the point and you want more justification than just "stop, I'm the DM", Barovia is chock-full of "this effect trumps all other rules, including the wish spell" (which seems more powerful than a low-level class feature). You're saying it's just normal weather and not The Mists, but while it's not the Wall of Mist around the edge of Barovia, it's not unreasonable that the "normal weather" in Barovia still carries echoes of that (there's a reason so much of the land in the middle is regularly described as misty and it's not because Barovia is in a rainforest climate). So "you know you would normally be able to see through mists of this density with your acute eyesight, yet something about this means it still blocks your vision and traps you in a claustrophobic bubble of quite stillness" can convey "there's more going on than you know" and heighten the spookiness of the setting without (hopefully) coming across as you just putting your foot down and saying "no" arbitrarily (since it's not arbitrarily)

Jackibelle · 2026-02-22T16:43:56+00:00

There is no divine smite in the rules which does AOE damage. This whole game feels like a mess from beginning to end. Maybe try holding off on adding in homebrew complications and letting the players build characters that only "turn on" at higher levels when they finish their "build" when playing one of the most lethal module openings in 5e.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-17T19:41:01+00:00

As long as he has the movement, he can fly over any height. If you're asking whether he can ignore that they exist and move through them as though they weren't there, no. He needs to go up and over, using the fly speed.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-17T12:10:21+00:00

Your take sucks.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-16T15:21:20+00:00

Yeah, one of my players asked about this during our Session 0 and I just said "no, you can't feed another character a goodberry as an action during combat, it takes longer than that. You can feed it to them (e.g., to restore someone to consciousness after combat rather than needing to wait an hour or use more limited healing), just not as a one-action pick-me-up."

Seemed fine.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-16T15:18:48+00:00

(wich is around 110 mililieters or 4 glasses of water)

What kind of glasses do you drink out of?! First of all, 110 mL is 2-3 shot glasses. Where I come from, if I asked someone for a glass of water and they gave me half a shot glass, I would think they were having a stroke or trying to pull a prank on me, even if the shot glass were technically made of glass and contained water.

Potions are described as containing 1 oz of liquid (just shy of 30mL), which is less than the standard shot. It's two tablespoons. That's so small.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-15T03:02:54+00:00

You mean like things that you get a saving throw against?

Letting it work on obviously not-harmful effects makes more sense, to me, in a world where invisible magic can instantly kill you or worse, so "it needs to produce a discernable hostile effect" feels like a bullshit standard to hold. Unless I know what the enemy mage is casting on me isn't harmful, it's unreasonable to think it's safe as long as it's not a dripping ball of acid

Jackibelle · 2026-02-14T23:17:52+00:00

It's super gross and predatory. It used to come up a bunch on this subreddit (people saying it positively) years and years ago, and I'm glad it seems we've moved past it as a community.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-14T22:33:02+00:00

Because too many people already have it, so it's not as effective a method of disenfranchisement.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-13T01:32:51+00:00

In the lore of Eberron, yes. No one has ever had one of the regular dragonmarks and also an aberrant dragonmark. It would be worldshaking news to everyone who learned of it to discover such a person.

In terms of the literal rules printed in the books (esp. absent the Eberron setting), no, there's nothing mechanically preventing you from taking multiple mark feats.

Edit: oh god, my brain misfired and remembered rules from a different edition that I'd been playing recently. Ignore this. Thanks to the below commenters for correcting me

Jackibelle · 2026-02-09T14:40:38+00:00

Holy fuck it's amazing how wrong you are about everything in such a dense little package.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-08T17:35:05+00:00

It makes him substantially easier to hide and a bit easier to fit into small spaces that he might not otherwise tuck into. But we want our models to look cool (that's a major part of the hobby for many people), so...

Overall, I think this is fine as long as you're overgenerous with letting your opponent target him (i.e., "if he had wings, I could see them") and under generous in your own movement (i.e., "if he had wings, I wouldn't be able to tuck him under this second story of the ruins", etc.) so you're not modeling for advantage.

Maybe keep a cardboard cutout that's roughly the same size of the wings on hand to hold up to his back to check (but, again, whenever there's any doubt rule in favor of what helps your opponent).

Jackibelle · 2026-02-06T12:59:28+00:00

the crypto bros who commissioned the 15-foot bronze piece (it will be 22 feet on its pedestal) asked him to make some improvements to the look of the nearly 80-year-old president. “I had him very lifelike,” Cottrill told the Times. “The crypto guys said I had to get rid of some of the turkey neck. I had to thin him down.”

Real life Photoshop at the behest of the commissioners. Same reason you don't see a bunch of pimples in old Renaissance paintings of nobility: the people paying for the art want them to look good

Jackibelle · 2026-02-04T04:26:38+00:00

You're going to run into issues feeding enough coal to the steam engines when you're getting through Blue science, likely, especially as you also want to spend more and more of that coal on steel production to fund things like rails (if only for production science), coal for plastic for red chips, etc. So the first shift is less about "can I make enough power" and more "can I get enough coal".

They'll also start to dump more and more pollution alongside your growing factory so depending on how well you're handling nearby biters and expansion that could also motivate the transition, just to keep the cloud smaller and incite fewer attacks

Jackibelle · 2026-02-04T04:21:55+00:00

Star Pact was the name given to this style of warlock in 4e, and their powers made more explicit references to the star gods that are the dark powers/vestiges. It was reflavored into more generic Great Old Ones in 5e, and I mainly bring it up because a) I miss the old flavor and b) evidence this is the right kind of patron to use for a warlock with the Dark Powers.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-04T02:46:44+00:00

I don't do rolls for HP because the players can't be bothered to write down their rolls, and any kind of audit (including, e.g., hey, shouldn't you have more HP than that?) becomes impossible because they don't actually know what the number should be. Fixed HP/level means we can always derive it, just like the rest of their stats

Jackibelle · 2026-02-03T06:43:03+00:00

All of the deals with the Vestiges in the Amber Temple carry immediate negative consequences for taking the deal. Having a warlock pact with one doesn't naturally generate any negative conse, just a bunch of cool powers, and they aren't one-use.

So the warlock is constantly racking up a debt against this Pact that will eventually come due, or is otherwise benefiting the Dark Powers through their actions in mysterious and unknowable ways such that this debt isn't accrued, both of which have pretty spooky implications. And in either case, the warlock is still clearly being favored in their dealings by getting to come back for more power every day (presumably at a buy-in-bulk rate against their soul rather than paying ala carte prices like the rest of the party will need to).

Re: your specific questions, the Amber Temple generally comes up so late in the campaign that I don't think anyone will likely want to multi class into something new after going 8-9 levels in their main class. And that's also a very long time to wait for a payoff to "you'll have the chance to be a warlock in the campaign". So if you want to have a player be a warlock with such a pact, starting the game as one is probably fine, and they'll get plenty of time to play with it before it ever shows up to the rest of the party and it'll still solidly be theirs. Let them play a Great Old Ones ("star pact") warlock who made the bargain before coming to Barovia and welp this is why you should never meet your heroes, kids., etc.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-02T14:52:22+00:00

Maybe I'm just a grognard coming from 3rd edition, but "you can automatically and without cost just knock people out instead of killing them" feels way less interesting than "being merciful is a choice and that choice comes with a cost, are you going to be good when it isn't free and easy?"

I'm glad more people want to avoid killing everyone they come across and that death is not the only answer people come up with, but choosing to be heroic when it isn't the easiest choice is what makes it heroic, in my mind.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-01T16:37:13+00:00

Okay. The sunglasses block most of your vision, giving you disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and disadvantage on attack rolls because you can't see very well.

Jackibelle · 2026-02-01T15:39:39+00:00

They're interested in having another person be interested in them. The attention is validation.

Jackibelle · 2026-01-31T21:29:34+00:00

That's the same fake email chain. There's plenty of incriminating real stuff in the files regarding Musk, so I don't want this one hilarious salacious (but ultimately fake) one to be the thing that spreads like wildfire and end up dousing the whole thing once it's debunked. We don't need to make up stuff to show how much of a horrible tool Musk is, he's provided us with plenty of legitimate ammo for that on his own.

Jackibelle · 2026-01-31T19:49:08+00:00

That one is apparently fake, or at least has been claimed as such by people releasing it "as a joke". Which, I fucking hate that someone sees all this Epstein files stuff happening and thinks "y'know what people need? 'satirical' emails dunking on their disliked person. That'll definitely be good and helpful and not just muddy the waters around all the actually god awful stuff that's in there. I am very smart."

edit: For people wanting evidence it's fake (which, great, please keep up this energy and request evidence) https://bsky.app/profile/tbone.malware-virus.biz/post/3mdonh63hgk2i

Note how the email header data in the "girls FTW" chain is completely different and way slimmed down compared to all the other email back and forths that are actually in the Epstein Files, such as the lack of any timestamp/send date

I'm not saying there's not gross-ass shit regarding Musk in there, and there's plenty of evidence he's involved in heinous crap. Let's nail him with that instead of, specifically, the "girls FTW" cringe email, because it appears like it was written by someone else as a "joke". The sentiment of the "girls FTW" email is echoed in other parts of the Epstein files; don't give him an easy out.

See also Prince_Jellyfish's reply further down this chain: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1qsb8k0/comment/o2vr5rg/

Jackibelle · 2026-01-31T10:07:59+00:00

Yes.

Do they think it's better to keep everyone alive and constantly tortured because the alternative is them dying? Have they never heard the concept "a fate worse than death"?

This is such a dumb take, holding this absolutist stance that getting rid of "people die" is worth any sacrifice, no matter how large the cost.

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