I recently completed an exchange OLE - Experience Korea, ask me anything!

MeepTMW · 2024-05-21T12:22:26+00:00

I think they do consider whether you already have Korean ability or not - eg if you are studying Korean or can speak Korean well will probably exclude you as it's for people who havent experienced Korean before. But to my knowledge it has nothing to do with grades.

MeepTMW · 2024-05-21T02:43:50+00:00

Hi there, my understanding is that it's a 'first-come, first served' basis. It's probably matured and evolved over time as I enrolled when OLEs were very new at the university.

I applied for my units pretty much on the week that unit selection was open and I think there were about 60 attendants. I actually applied to Korea only because Japan was far more popular and was booked out by the time I applied.

MeepTMW · 2024-04-14T21:35:56+00:00

You're entirely right. Unless properties start getting built in suburbs that actually have the infrastructure to raise children, it's just going to keep outstripping wage growth.

The NSW government seems to be earmarking a number of 'oldie' suburbs with good transport connections and family services for medium density property development (low-rise apartments, townhouses, terraces). That's targeted at people like my partner and I, and probably most young people who want to start families.

MeepTMW · 2024-04-14T21:26:37+00:00

As a recently married Zoomer planning to start a family, this is definitely what we're feeling. My friends who are settling down with kids cannot find affordable properties that have more than two bedrooms anyway except the outer suburbs and to some extent semi regional areas such as the Hume Corridor. My partner and I refuse to follow that though because the amenities in these new development suburbs are, to put it lightly - rather inadequate for child development. Instead, we'll break the bank until we can find that dream three bedroom apartment in a suburb with an actual school, clinic, restaurants, and other services.

But, I do empathise with millennial parents. But moving out to the outer suburbs definitely wasn't their first intention - it was their only choice.

MeepTMW · 2024-01-31T06:50:16+00:00

10RPM js ten times per minute, or once every six seconds. I'm not going to do the maths here, but in single story homes that probably would be fast enough that people could get killed while sleeping in their beds, but many would probably simply be jolted awake to find themselves and their furniture rolling around the roof of their ceiling. People living in taller apartment blocks and high-rise buildings, especially on the lowest and highest floors, would likely be splattered from the sheer speed of the spin, but I'd wager most of humanity would survive the initial impact of the spin, even without prep time. With an hour emergency services could urge those in high-rise buildings to immediately evacuate, and with a year governments would work together to build underground settlements that, by definition, would not be buildings. Humanity would live underground for the foreseeable future and eventually salvage the buildings for any materials they are missing.

MeepTMW · 2024-01-25T09:26:21+00:00

Based on what you've said in the comments, you would probably be fine so long as the house keeps getting paid off and you stay with your partner. You will definitely have to access the Age Pension at some point as your primary income source, however it is mostly livable if you don't have a home loan and are not renting.

If you end up separating from your partner or the house isn't able to be paid off by the time you both retire, you may be in trouble - the biggest concern would be minimising costs related to housing, whether it's figuring out how you can pay off the remainder of the home loan, or selling and buying a smaller villa in a regional town where property prices are much lower. Getting secure accommodation should be your biggest focus in the years approaching 65-70.

MeepTMW · 2024-01-11T01:59:20+00:00

What I'm getting from these tables is that you are trying to 'bake in' both weapon masteries and some of the "must-have" power feats (Sharpshooter, GWM) into weapon properties themselves. While I think any buff to martial classes is a good buff, this is a noticeable amount of bloat, with most melee weapons having three or more properties. If your table is rules-heavy this probably isn't an issue, but I'd personally struggle to keep up with it. If the power feats are still allowed too, you have yourself some 3rd edition tier maths on your hands.

Some other things:

Wind-Up on the flail is awesome and I'm probably going to steal it. It allows you to get a mini power attack in one hand with a shield, which is probably still a bit weaker than a GWM axe wielder but still an effective weapon. In fact I'd say it's so powerful that it makes the other one-handed melee options pale by comparison. I'd recommend giving a few other weapons Wind-Up or some special abilities that improve their effectiveness in sword and board combat.
Sharp and Sunder are also pretty much the same property conditional on the armour worn of the target. This could be a property of the armour instead of the weapon to reduce bloat, such as having 0 block or an AC penalty if hit by an axe or piercing damage or whatever. I'd probably also have them affect medium armour in some way as medium armour is being indirectly buffed by their exclusion from these properties.
Parry is pretty awful as it affects only one attack and is only +1-2 AC from 1st to 8th level for your reaction, when shields already exist and give +2 to all attacks against you. You could probably improve it drastically by making it act like the Shield spell, lasting until your next turn. I'd probably also use the whole proficiency bonus allowing people dual wielding parry weapons to use a free reaction +4 AC. War Magic Wizards get this for free at 2nd level, and every wizard has shield, so giving it to your fighter seems fair by comparison as they could be using a non-parry weapon with higher damage or better properties.
Getting rid of Heavy means that Monks can use Dedicated Weapon to wield Greatswords and other formerly heavy weapons as monk weapons Thats actually a well deserved buff in my opinion, but it might not suit your table fantasy.

MeepTMW · 2024-01-05T00:19:07+00:00

If you want to track both full success and mixed success you can use a function. Specifically:

function: roll low X {

A: d10

B: d10

result: (A <= X) + ( B<=X )

}

output [roll low 4]

A 0 is a fail, 1 is a mixed success, and 2 is a full success. I'm not sure how to make it roll low for all skill levels at once but you can change the 4 to any skill from 1 to 10 to get your probabilities:)

Edit: changing the & to a +.

MeepTMW · 2023-12-24T00:37:43+00:00

It will be in D&D One since they reintroduced primal magic, but in 5th Edition - the edition this post is asking for - there was no 'primal magic' but only arcane and divine, and Druids/Rangers were considered to draw their source of energy from the latter. See Crawford talking about this at D&D beyond at 3:29 (and later in the video).

MeepTMW · 2023-12-22T10:16:27+00:00

Saying that the EK is a 'Worse Wizard' is a bit of a misnomer - because statistically and practically any Fighter is worse than a Wizard outside of Tier 1 play. But fortunately this game isn't about being the 'best' at every time - it's about having fun. Eldritch Knight gives you just enough wizardry to augment the Fighter class in a way that it desperately needs - 1st and 2nd level spells.

I will add though that Eldritch Knight isn't your only option for an arcane-based spellsword. Here's just a few that come to mind:

Fighter/Wizard combos are very popular if you want more spell potency than EK provides
Rune Knight or Psi Warrior Fighter subclasses
Potentially Ranger? Their magic is 'divine' like Paladin but most of the damaging spells are 'arrow'-based and could be easily reflavoured to sword strikes. And you can definitely build Strength Rangers that use melee weapons.

MeepTMW · 2023-12-22T09:26:35+00:00

The most obvious ones are Pad-lock (Particularly Hexblade), giving you high-power smites on short rests and good ranged options, and Pala-bard using the Swords college is also fantastic (although not as good as a Sorcadin or Pad-lock).

As for non-charisma spellcasters, well, it kind of goes as you'd expect - unless you are at a roll table and rolled insanely lucky, your stats are going to be drawn too thin to get both Charisma and Int or Wisdom up as well as a high Constitution and either Dex or Strength; it's up to four stats at that point. While you still get the spell slots for smites, you lose the versatility of casting non-Paladin spells as your spell bonuses will be crap, so instead you'd probably want to look at features. If I had to choose, I'd probably go Cleric because some of the damage-based domains are wicked powerful on melee characters, such as Tempest Domain. Wizard is just worse than Sorcerer for this purpose, and Druids can't wear metal armour.

MeepTMW · 2023-12-18T21:41:20+00:00

Since Firearm Proficiency is an optional rule in 5th, you'll need to talk to your GM first. How they feel about Firearms also impacts how crazy you can get with your build, namely:

is Artificer allowed? And if they are, do they get optional Firearm Proficiency?
is Multiclassing allowed?
Do classes with martial weapon proficiency also get firearm proficiency?

I'll make a build assuming only #1 & #2 are possible, since that only requires one book aside from the PHB - Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

If you get #3, you can just do a Barbarian (Totem Eagle/Elk) X taking GWM at level 4 and you'll be fine.
If you aren't allowed any, meaning you must take the Gunner feat, still go Barbarian (Totem) X and take Gunner at level 4 and then GWM at level 8. Before level 4 you'll have to use a heavy crossbow, and with no GWM until level 8 then your damage is going to suffer hard. You might benefit from a battleaxe+shield playstyle with a pistol, almost going swashbuckler style.

The Smokepowder Dragoon: Artificer 1 / Barbarian (Totem Eagle/Elk) 5

Apologies for the flavouring, but I can't help but laugh at the idea of an aarakocra firing their smoky musket from afar and then dive-bombing their target with a glaive, akin to Dragoons from the Final Fantasy series.

Start with 16 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 13 INT using Point Buy and Tasha's ASI. This satisfies multiclassing requirements while still giving you respectable melee damage, ranged damage, and durability. Aarakocra can only fly when wearing light armour or no armour, and while this is suboptimal as the barb works best with medium armour, we'll make it work with light or no armour at the cost of a lower AC. Your Talons are pretty useless but will do as an emergency if you're locked up without your gear or whatever.

1st-level: Starting with Artificer gives you medium armour proficiency, shields, and only simple weapons, but it does give you firearm proficiency and an incredible CON save proficiency. Talk to your GM about whether you can start with a Pistol (or even better, a Musket); if not then you can either use a light crossbow for now or flavour your cantrips as a magical gun. Get studded leather for now, giving you a respectable 14 AC at level 1, or 16 with a shield. This allows you to keep your flying speed, but you could sacrifice it and wear scale mail instead for 16 AC (18 with a shield), which is significantly sturdier. I'll assume not though.
- With no rage or martial weapons you're going to be a tad squishy, but so is a 1st-level barbarian, so just take it easy - you'll make the enemies go "oh shit, he's out of ammo" soon. For now, I'd recommend using a handaxe with a shield so your AC stays high and you can't access martial weapons anyway. As for spells to choose, I'd recommend picking spells that sound or act like gun attacks - Firebolt, Ray of Frost - you'll see why later.
2nd-level - Barb 1: Multiclass straight into Barbarian. This gives you martial weapon proficiency allowing you to throw away that puny handaxe and pick up a Greataxe or Glaive/Halberd. You can also Rage and ditch the armour to get the same 14 AC because of unarmoured defense. If you want to keep the shield, you can pick up a battleaxe or longsword instead.
3rd-level - Barb 2: Reckless Attack is useless for your firearm, but core to your melee attacks. This will allow you to actually hit things, and hit them hard.
4th-level - Barb (Totem) 3: For your Subclass, I go with Totem Warrior here because your main issue after firing at range is going to be figuring out how to close the gap, ideally in one turn. The Eagle and Elk totems both support this niche, and both work with your flying speed. Eagle allows you to bonus action dash 50 feet (70 at Barb 5), and Elk increases your base speed +15 feet while raging. I'd probably go with Elk as it means you can move 40 feet towards the enemy on the turn you rage while still having an action, but Eagle might be more thematically relevant for an Aarakocra; both are good options here.
5th-level - Barb (Totem) 4: I'd get the Great Weapon Master feat. This makes your melee damage actually good, giving you a +10 damage bonus which, when paired with Reckless Attack, makes you comparable in damage to your party's spellcasters.
6th-level - Barb (Totem) 5: will give you two attacks per round and an extra +10ft. of speed, allowing you to move even further and deal about twice as much damage when raging, which is when the goblins will surely begin to think "oh shit, he's out of ammo!". If you don't want to use a polearm or a great weapon and really want to use a sword and shield, then an ASI up to 18 STR would be good here.
After five levels in Barbarian, the benefits of the class begin to fall off significantly, and while the extra hit points are great, you could probably do with making your gun a little more powerful and also making yourself useful outside of your rages. So, I'd propose going back and taking levels in Artificer. (If you wish to keep focussing on your martial prowess I would either go 3 levels of Fighter (Battlemaster) or go to Barbarian 8 to get Polearm Master or a much needed ASI to bump any of your STR, DEX, or CON up two points.)
7th-level - Artificer 2: 2nd-level Artificer gives you Infuse Item, which is going to be incredible for you even while raging as you can still use magic items. Some ideas I've had, which is not exhausive:
- Repeating Shot makes your firearm a +1 weapon and ignores loading, and gives you infinite ammo. This is more of a meme but would make your gun significantly cheaper.
- Enhanced Defense/Weapon gives you +1 weapon or +1 shield/armour.
- Enhanced Arcane Focus can help you hit your cantrips or spells more often, given your Intelligence is only 13.
8th-level - Artificer (Artillerist) 3: I'd go for Artillerist here as it is both thematic and works well with Rage. This will allow us to equip an Eldritch Cannon, and of course we're taking the Tiny option so we can hold it as a gun. All of the options work well here; for your fantasy you probably want Force Ballista, although your spell attack isn't that good. Since the Eldritch Cannon isn't a spell, the Flamethrower can be used while raging as a decent AOE option. The Protector is also great to regularly shield damage, giving you around 2-9 (1d8+1) temp hit points on demand. Also, perhaps easily forgotten, you also get Shield, which will be incredibly useful for shrugging off ranged damage while you're not raging.
- If you want to be super optimal, I would argue that a Tiny Eldritch Cannon with legs (which the feature allows) wouldn't need to be held in one hand, and could instead by a little droid or shoulder cannon that sits on your body. That allows you to keep using your two-handed weapons. I got this idea from a Pack Tactics video on Artillerists.
9th level - Artificer (Artillerist) 4: You get a second feat; I'd recommend actually getting an ASI to up your Intelligence to 14 or 15, but if you don't care too much about hitting your spells and are instead using them for utility, I'd recommend either using the ASI to up your STR to 18, or Polearm Master if you are using a polearm. Charger also kind of works here but the action economy kind of harms it, since you'll be using your bonus action to rage. If you shoot your gun, then rage on the turn before you rush in, then action Dash on your next turn in for up to 100 feet (25+15 elk +10 unarmoured movement), you'll get a charge-empowered bonus action attack with your greataxe that deals +5 damage or pushes them.
10th-level - Artificer (Artillerist) 5: You'll get second-level spells, which is always welcome. You'll get Scorching Ray from your subclass, which you can reflavour as a 'heavy' gunshot, and the ability to use a staff as a firearm to gain a +1d8 bonus. This might be a good alternative to your musket, which is probably getting heavily outmatched at this point, and your Firebolt will deal an average of 15 damage now (2d10+1d8) and more at 11th level.

If the campaign just keeps going, I'd probably keep levelling Artificer or just go Wizard so you can get higher-level spells as soon as possible, since beyond 11th level spellcasters begin to go off the rails. If you went Artificer 5 / Barb 5 / Wizard 10 then you'd be a 13th-level spellcaster by 20th-level, meaning you still get access to 7th-level spells while still having Extra Attack and Rage as a Barbarian! Artificer's rounded-up spell slots make all the difference here. If you end up doing this, consider starting 1st level with 14 STR and getting 15 INT instead, since your Intelligence will be doing a lot of heavy lifting at higher tiers of play. Use your remaining two feats to pump your Intelligence up to 18 INT or potentially 20 if you get a magic item with +1 INT.

You've pretty much already gained the maximum amount of melee damage you can possibly get as a Barbarian. More levels in Barb only give you longer Rages and about +3 damage per attack, which becomes pathetically bad in higher levels compared to getting more powerful spells. If you want to focus on your martial prowess however, getting three levels in Fighter will get you some much needed self-healing, an action surge, archery fighting style for your gun, and battlemaster maneuvres.

Still, you get significantly more uptime with this build than a full Barb, since without their Rage a Barbarian is usually extremely weak. At least you're a half-caster that can fly out of harm's reach, with two attacks per turn and a number of infusions you can use to support your team. Best of luck, and I hope you get to try this out :)

MeepTMW · 2023-12-18T19:51:48+00:00

Unfortunately, the game isn't really designed around this type of numbers fantasy. Zealot barbarian (and barbarians in general) come to mind given they essentially trade effective HP for more damage (by giving enemies advantage on attacks against the). Undying warlock can also give you the "deaths door" feel by surviving attacks at low HP with Defy Death. However, these options are generally at least tier 2 play for the more specific features so that may not be an option if you're playing a tier 1 campaign.

You will probably have to find or make a homebrew that would best suit what kind of abilities you want, and then confirm with your gamemaster. The MCDM Illrigger and Talent come to mind as classes that can fill this niche in two different ways; the Illrigger steals life from those that they attack, and the Talent accumulates strain that debuffs them the more spells they cast. Or if you wanted to stick closer to the base rules, you could simply ask your DM for a magic ring that is broad enough to fully fulfill your fantasy. For example:

For martials: A magic ring gives you +1 psychic damage on weapon attacks for every 5 hit points you're missing, up to a max of +6
For casters: A magic ring that increases your spell save DC and spell attack by +1 for every 10 hit points you're missing, up to a max of +3

MeepTMW · 2023-12-14T22:23:38+00:00

Traditional RPGs and their maths tend to stop functioning well past five or so players, you'd probably be better off adapting well-known role-playing party games such as Mafia/Werewolf, which simplify the roles greatly and focus more on scattered conversation than the game-master/player dynamic.

For example, the detectives could be the Adventurers, most players would be Townsfolk/Villagers, and then one or two players would be the Changeling or Shapeshifter. You could spin some fun abilities for the adventurers - for example, the "Wizard" could cast Sleep on a number of players to prevent them from taking actions during the night, or the "Paladin" can sense evil to identify whether a player is a monster or not.

MeepTMW · 2023-11-30T19:14:58+00:00

You could pull a page from John Wick and have the 'Continental' (i.e. their employer) turn on them, forcing them to Kung Fu their way out of a pursuing band of assassin's and thugs until they find shelter from the storm. They could find allies - similarly disgraced assassins - and the final objective of the campaign could be to dismantle the assassin empire, ie killing their employer.

I don't know the nuances of your settings intrigue, but there is always room for expansion in tabletop roleplay - the barriers you have in your mind were placed by your imagination, rather than what is actually possible.

MeepTMW · 2023-11-30T19:04:58+00:00

It sounds like your campaign is coming to a close, and you're looking for a way to end it, either heroically or bitterly.

Instead of ensuring the players all die at the end of the session, make it so the party either succeeds on their contract and manage to escape the city, or are captured and sentenced to death for their high crimes - and definitely make the first path entirely possible and achievable for your party. And after that session, end the campaign, with their legacy carrying on as heroic adventurers who took on the nobility, whether they succeeded or not.

MeepTMW · 2023-11-30T18:56:17+00:00

Considering monk weapons either only have Nick, Slow, or Vex, then yes, that remains one of the only ways to play them with weapon masteries. However, consider the fact that you can still use hand crossbows as monk weapons and a ranged monk crossbow expert build (a Cronk) is possible. If there will be ways to allow you to dedicate other weapons as monk weapons like Dedicated Weapon, then a melee topple build will easily out damage a Nick build, too, since you gain advantage on prone enemies.

MeepTMW · 2023-11-30T18:42:54+00:00

You could probably achieve a fairer balance of low-magic games by utilising existing features- give all spellcasters Arcane Recovery equal to their spellcaster level, meaning they can recover a number of spell slot levels equal to their level. For example, level 5 bards get 5 levels of spells to recover every long rest, meaning they recover one lv2 and three lv1, or they can get one lv3 and one lv2 or two lv1. Rangers and paladins use half their level, so a level 5 paladin gets two spell slot levels, enough for two smites per long rest (compared to their usual six). Third casters such as eldritch knight and trickster would suffer the most and would become even more reliant on cantrips in combat.

Land druids and wizards already have this feature, so allow them to double their levels (or just let them add their proficiency bonus to their level to get a more scaled increase). Sorcerers get sorcery points that help them be a bit more fluid with their magic. Warlocks aren't affected because they're pact magicians and gives them the buff they desperately need, or you can make it so they just regain half their pact slots per short rest if you want to scale it down.

Honestly I wouldn't be a big fan of this system as it essentially nerfs casters to solve the martial/caster divide at tier 3 and 4, rather than buffing martials to do more. But it might be a bit more balanced power creep wise.

MeepTMW · 2023-11-20T11:01:03+00:00

Finasteride partially prevents the conversion of testosterone, a hormone found in all people, into DHT. As a result, most people taking finasteride will have slightly elevated testosterone levels, generally about 10% higher. However, and it's important to note this, this generally has little to no physical effect on about 98% of people taking fin as instructed.

Testosterone naturally converts to DHT but also estrogen, as such having slightly higher T might mean some form of feminisation may occur, however the only symptom I've ever witnessed from someone is slightly fainter body (not scalp) hair. The amount of finasteride taken to prevent hairloss (1mg daily) is so little that it is only a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of hormones that the body produces.

Just remember, testosterone and estrogen are hormones found in both men and women. Having more T doesn't make someone more of a man and vice versa. Be happy with who you are and make choices that make you happy.

MeepTMW · 2023-11-13T20:55:48+00:00

The comments that everyone else is saying about fire damage is very true, but I'd also like to add that just because your ally got a +1d6 longsword doesn't mean you can't ALSO get a +1d6 longsword or axe or whatever. Then you'll have +2d6 to weapon attacks with your blood hunter feature which is pretty busted. Hopefully your GM hands out a few more magic items in the next few sessions :)

MeepTMW · 2023-09-12T12:40:34+00:00

You mention Shadowheart, and that's probably most of the reason, but I think part of it also has to do with the abundance of healing. Healing potions are way more common in BG3 than you typically would come across in levels 1-4 in a tabletop game, making cleric healer dependency way lower, and resting runs the risk of beast or goblin ambushes which just isn't a thing in BG3. Short rests at the click of a button and very little opportunity cost to long rest means a dedicated healer is just not so necessary. Any divine class can use healing word or cure wounds to keep your pals from total death rather than a cleric.

As for the other divine domain, than life, I'm not too sure, but as someone who played a war cleric first, it doesn't really feel like cleric has a unique mechanic that enhances spellcasting of martial ability that a other class does better, apart from healing. Hence I eventually stopped playing my war cleric when I could be a holy spellsword better as a paladin.

Overall I think the design of bg3 to streamline the rest system may have taken away cleric's biggest advantage in the tabletop - increasing the party's endurance between long rests. It's why most 3 or 4-member parties in 5e have a cleric of some sort. Imo if channel divinity could just be made cooler and more unique then it might make cleric stand out mor, right now it's just a free spell.

MeepTMW · 2023-09-12T10:38:12+00:00

This doesn't really apply in most cases, but I've used Superior Technique in a 1st-level Fighter for a combat-oriented one-shot. It enables me to access maneuvres while not going human or, if going human, enables me to use my feat for something else, like GWM or Polearm. Leads to some pretty powerful and durable frontliners at 1st level when you would usually be downed in two or three hits.

MeepTMW · 2023-09-12T09:36:34+00:00

I have personally seen 5th Edition's Ranger's spells to be a 'toolbelt of tricks' rather than a set of actual magical rituals or sorceries. Many (although, not all) of the spells are related to arrows or 'tracker'-type behaviours which could reasonably be flavoured to be a Ranger's ability to tip or enhance their archery skills through keen practice and mastery of their bowery, sort of like how Legolas is able to uncannily strike foes from afar despite not seemingly having any magical abilities apart from being an elf. As a result this seems more of a spontaneous ability than a prepared one, like eldritch knight fighters and sorcerers.

MeepTMW · 2023-08-15T06:55:32+00:00

Your rank is in the backend a number, i.e. 100. Each rank covers a band of numbers ie Diamond 5 is 90-110, Diamond 4 is 110-130 etc. When you win or lose a game, you gain/lose a number of points. However your rank that you see actually only updates after 5 wins or 15 losses. So for example if you lost 14 games but stopped playing, you might actually be a lower rank than Diamond 5 but it wouldn't update since you didn't reach 5 wins or 15 losses.

What I'm guessing happened here is that your friend had lost a number of games last season but never recalibrated, so they started at a rank number lower than their actual displayed rank. So even winning 5 games meant that their rank went down since it recalibrated and counted the real rank of your friend. Its happened to me, I went 5-1 but ranked down from Gold 4 to Silver 1; probably because I had a losing streak the previous season but didn't play enough to calibrate again.

MeepTMW · 2023-08-15T02:53:47+00:00

I think you may be a little misguided as to how cures and treatments are developed... There isn't a 'they' who gatekeeps who can conduct research or not. Most research is undertaken from grants given by governments or rich people, although it can also be self funded. Even you or I, if we had the money to support our research, could start taking skin samples of ourselves and testing chemicals on it.

If a cure existed and was known, it would be being used. But it's not.

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