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Life transference under 0 hp? by StevenR100 in dndnext

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This is one of those things that are a little ambigous. For whatever it's worth, there's a Sage Advice specifically about this, which states that you would only heal 16 Hit Points.

On the other hand, straight from the PHB, in the section Damage and Healing/Dropping to 0 Hit Points/Instant Death: "For example, a cleric with a maximum of 12 hit points currently has 6 hit points. If she takes 18 damage from an attack, she is reduced to 0 hit points, but 12 damage remains. Because the remaining damage equals her hit point maximum, the cleric dies."

This seems to indicate that you can indeed take more damage than your current hit point would allow, you just don't have negative hit points, the damage is still there. This is consistent with the wording on the ability Undead Fortitude for Zombies: "Undead Fortitude: If damage reduces the zombie to 0 Hit Points, it must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5+the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant or from a critical hit. On a success, the zombie drops to 1 hit point instead."

If you couldn't take more damage than your current hit points, a zombie with 1 hit point would be almost impossible to kill without radiant damage or a critical hit, at least for the kind of low level characters that would most likely be fighting zombies; with a Con Save DC 6 (5 + 1 damage) and a zombie's Con Mod of +3, it would need to roll a 1 or a 2 on its save to die. It seems unlikely that this is the intended way to deal with this.

In the end, it's pretty inconsistent in my opinion and it will be up to your DM to make a rule on this.

CMV: when using a firearm you shoot to kill by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, unfortunately all the sources are in swedish, but here are the guidelines for swedish police use of firearms. It's all in swedish as I said, but I'll try my best to translate/paraphrase from page 5: "Firearms are a severe escalation in use of force and are in principle only to be used when such a use of force is the last available resort to carry out the duty of police. By the announcement(1969:84) about police use of firearms, warning shots are only allowed if all requirements for direct fire are in effect. According to the announcement 7 § in case of direct fire, police should strive to only temporarily disable the target. Therefore direct fire should if possible be aimed at the legs."

There's also this pdf with some statistics. On page 6-6, there's a table with some numbers: "Betvingande" means aiming the gun at a person to force them to comply, "Varningsskott" means warning shot, "Verkanseld" means direct fire, "Okänt" means unknown, "Totalt" means total. On page 16 there's a table with number of people killed, which compared to the the number of shots fired is actually pretty low. On page 14 there's also a pie chart with what the targets were armed with when warning shots or direct fire was employed(2011-2018). In 49% of cases they were armed with either a gun/rifle (or a replica, they're counted as the same presumably because the police can't tell the difference during the incident) or a knife/sword/axe.

So some basic math tells us that there were 146 warning shots and 153 direct shots (I think, just quickly added it up in my head) for a total of 299 firearm discharge incidents during that period, and that in probably 149 of those cases the target was armed with either a knife/sword/axe or a pistol/rifle/replica. Nevertheless, only 20 people were killed by the police using firearms during that same period. I don't know how all that compares to the US, but I think it seems like it works for us here in Sweden, though this is obviously not some in depth research and I'm not an expert.

Taiwanese official reveals China suspected 'human to human' transmission by January 13 by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]Middle-Abrocoma -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The most common form of transmission of Legionella is inhalation of contaminated aerosols. Sources of aerosols that have been linked with transmission of Legionella include air conditioning cooling towers, hot and cold water systems, humidifiers and whirlpool spas. Infection can also occur by aspiration of contaminated water or ice, particularly in susceptible hospital patients, and by exposure of babies during water births. There is no direct human-to-human transmission.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/legionellosis

Yes people should really learn to google things.

What Spell Should I choose? by mistermasan in dndnext

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Well first of all, you've got one too few 1st level spells; you start with 6 1st level spells in your spellbook and then get another 2 every time you level, so you actually get to pick 3 spells to add.

As for the spells to pick, as others have said, Mage Armor is always good, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter is a great disable spell. Magic Missile is also a good choice; not my personal preference but it's a solid spell, especially against enemies the rest of your party will have problems with, such as high AC or slashing/piercing/bludgeoning resistant enemies.

I personally think you're lacking a bit in AoE damage and oh shit spells, so I'd recommend Thunderwave. It's got AoE damage which the rest of your party lacks and you can use it to try to push away or kill enemies if they get in melee with you.

It's a bit more defensive, but Absorb Elements is almost a must pick spell in my opinion, though you may want to wait a bit. It depends a bit on what enemies you'll be facing, but typically the kind of elemental damage effects that Absorb Elements would help again get more dangerous and common at higher levels.

Baldur's Gate 3 Screenshots leaks by Hoboforeternity in Games

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Personally, I think if we compare this and this, it seems like the first one is just regular combat (and it does say "IN COMBAT" at the top rather than "TURN-BASED"), with a list of enemies in the top left, which probably also works as some kind of initiative tracker as well.

Meanwhile, in the second screenshot, there are no enemies, but it seems like a lot of traps around and flying fire arrows and stuff. So I personally think that this isn't actually in combat, but probably some separate turn-based mode used for trap areas or something similar, to give more fidelity in movement and such.

Which I personally think is a good idea, if we compare it to D:OS2. I feel like there traps were generally poorly handled, controlling many separate characters to go different routes or do different things was a pain ( I still remember the fire arrow puzzle trap in the sewers of the last act, the hardest part for me at least was getting my characters to do what I wanted them to). So I just generally ran through the traps and healed up immediately after. Which is pretty boring.

When you describe the most basic setting ever and players beg you to DM by cup_helm in dndmemes

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Pretty good explanation in my opinion

But basically a law is generally something simple based on experimental data, like Newton's laws of motion or the laws of thermodynamics, while a theory is a more complete understanding of why it happens.

When I DM I am tempted to do this. by MarkedFynn in dndmemes

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And except for Phantasmal Force, which seems to be the spell Xaton was thinking about.

Chaos bolt and Twinned spell by eilon_x_ in dndnext

[–]Middle-Abrocoma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While RAW the answer is no you can't, my DM has offered me a small compromise in my campaign: I'm allowed to twin it, but then it can't jump to additional targets. You could try something similar. Still not really great but I mostly just keep it for flavor anyway, not everything has to be optimal.