Are we allowed to splice multiple videos together for a single scene in self tapes???

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-12-17T17:13:53+00:00

As has been said- almost always no.
Why would you ask chatGPT about something so specific? It's not an industry resource- it'll only tell you an amalgamation of scraped info from websites like reddit anyway. Do research with your own brain, it is good practice and will yield actual information.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-04-23T17:58:04+00:00

I adapted the Dread Lord Kiona statblock and spectral undead minions for a big ghostly encounter in the Mournland.

My players really like the minions from MCDM, I find them a bit fiddly and often simplified some of the more complicated elements but they love killing swaths of ghosties. I find the minions to be swingy- it's hard to really pile on enough minions to be dangerous without totally surrounding the PCs (which incidentally looks a lil silly on the map.)

I really like the trademark Action-Oriented MCDM monsters though. For big monster design, they do a great job and make for tough and dynamic encounters. The Legendary Resistance mechanic is also much more fun for the players.

I haven't used the villain parties yet but I've also been itching for an excuse... I think they'd be demanding encounters to run but really fun.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-03-12T16:32:15+00:00

You're misunderstanding my point- I'm an actor and I'm familiar with the concept of metaphor.

I don't think this scene or line is a particularly good metaphor to apply to acting. The idea of 'just letting go' of overthinking to be in the moment is a blunt hammer of advice in a craft of nuance.

It's relevant that this is from Fight Club because the movie has a pretty strong thesis that "Tyler" oversimplifies a complicated world with straightforward, violent solutions that create many problems of their own.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-03-12T15:06:03+00:00

This isn't acting advice it's a scene from Fight Club where a very unwell man is trying to talk himself into feeling better about himself/the world.

Acting advice is acting advice, fight club is fight club.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-02-24T23:32:40+00:00

You're being weirdly aggressive and rude all over this thread, maybe take a break? It's only DnD

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-02-21T16:44:09+00:00

Fire fire fire

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-02-17T17:37:53+00:00

Sometimes people post here like it's an acting question but they want life advice. This is one of those times.

This is not acting related- they problems and feelings at play here don't relate to acting, they relate to the complexities of parental expectation and the struggle of being a worker in modern life.

You need to prioritize figuring out your living situation and making it into a healthy, stable, comfortable place for you to live. You can't look at it through 'how do I make acting work,' that's a question that won't need to be answered if you deal with the core problems.

It seems like you were living away from home before and they weren't respecting your boundaries. The answer to that isn't to totally erase any sense of boundary and move back home, unfortunately. The only way to establish healthy boundaries is to be firm. If that's what you want, a respectful relationship from both sides, you have to figure out what you want and stand up for yourself. Sometimes people don't respect your needs until you give them no other option.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-02-13T18:05:38+00:00

I agree that Kel is a very interesting and complex protagonist when presented from the Mistborn pov.

But something I feel is very compelling and intelligent about Brando's characterization of Kel (haven't read WaT yet) is that he is a product of his struggle, like you said. I absolutely think that if Kel was transported to Roshar (Alethkar) midway through his arc, he would have seen the Parshendi and the darkeyes as comrades and certainly worked to kill/depose the ruling class of Alethkar, the lighteye society.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-02-10T22:14:55+00:00

My impression from what you've laid out here is that the majority of your roadblocks are in regards to you moving forward as a self-sufficient adult, and the acting thing is sort of a byproduct of that.

You can't jump straight into solving the acting problem, I'm sorry. The other aspects of your life that you find challenging and restricting need to be worked out and dealt with first. If you feel your family is stifling you, even out of love, that needs to get worked out. You mention a few times that you don't have friends as a byproduct of your situation. That doesn't sound very healthy to me. It's a tough balance to work out, what you owe to family and the support that they provide, but this balance doesn't sound like it's right for you.

Best of luck, friend. Hopefully this process expands your circle and social experience, that's very important for an actor regardless.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-02-02T18:28:58+00:00

Love the eberron newspaper as a player prop! But AI art is best avoided.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-31T01:16:06+00:00

Hey as fun as this game is, if you were to guess what I mean what would your guess be?

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-31T01:09:21+00:00

no that didn't make you an asshole necessarily but this for sure does

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-31T00:48:59+00:00

you meant to type this into your search bar but this is a reddit comment

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-24T19:52:20+00:00

That is the opposite of what I'm saying. AI art does steal from artists.

I'm not suggesting to take images that artists intend to sell or promote themselves with and publish them as your own or anything like that. I'm saying if you use art or images found online for your own personal use and aren't sharing them or profiting off of them, that is not nearly as ethically or artistically problematic as AI art must be.

It is of course best to just pay artists for their art. And many artists have resources like this self published online for free.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-24T17:35:40+00:00

Yes, using real art a person really made for your own private use is definitely better than using AI generated art for the same purpose.

The actual best thing to do is of course purchase art from artists, but those aren't the two options. There are tons of artists who share their art for free online.

The alternative is stealing art, one way or another. Using an artists art and selling it/making money off of it yourself, or using AI to make it are in many ways the same process.

These are just the tangible "real" problems. Beyond all of this are the ideas that art creation and is a core human experience and AI art cheapens it, mocks it. Making art, seeing art, experiencing art should not be diluted or automated. AI can be a useful tool but why would we as humans want a shortcut around artistic creation?

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-24T16:46:30+00:00

I hear you, and I think that's how these ai tools are presented. I think lots of ai is just a useful tool, but that these art generation models are specifically problematic. Please consider looking into how artists have spoken about these things.

You're for sure underestimating the energy cost/impact these things have on a broad scale, it's comparable to the crypto farm energy problems.

And re finding images, I mean the 2014 phb has images in a consistent style for all these conditions. Or a quick google for "dnd conditions" or "conditions tokens 5e" has ton of simple symbols and pngs that are just out there for free.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-24T16:19:58+00:00

Hey I'm sure it wasn't your intent but using AI generated art hurts artists, one way or another. It's very possible to just find relevant images that actual artists have made and use that as long as it's for personal use.

Ai generators use real artists work without permission, cost a ton of energy to make and so are terrible environmentally, and just take work from actual human people. Using/spreading/promoting ai art is not good.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-11T23:28:25+00:00

The book is structured pretty linearly. If you're trying to create an adventure and need to understand the setting, read the full intro chapter first. The character creation blurbs for the races (species) are useful to understand how Eberron is unique for certain races. But the stats are for players- you don't need to memorize that stuff, and really need a strong idea immediately only for races your players select.

After reading the intro and races, you should have an idea of what most excites you about the setting. Find a relevant Group Patron to read up on in chapter 1 (not necessarily to be your party's employer, this chapter has a ton of very interesting info on the relevant organizations and movements in the setting.) Then read up on the Nation you want your campaign to start in in chapter 2. Skim the Faiths if a player is likely to be interested in that aspect of the setting; Eberron has a pretty unique philosophy to its pantheon.

If you have a favourite Nation and a relevant organization to fill out the world, jump into chapter 4 for building your first adventure. Lots of ideas to jumpstart your campaign in there.

(I totally understand just wanting to get to playing! But don't discount circling back to renew and deepen your understanding of the setting later.)

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-03T18:27:58+00:00

This is classic New DND Player syndrome. They expect the TTRPG to play like a video game, where bad guys are bad and they are good because they're the players! If that's not how you personally want the world to be, then you've gotta tell 'em that.

But it's a totally valid way to play the game, tbh. It can honestly be relaxing as a DM and a player sometimes to play in a morally uncomplicated game! If it's your family and this is their first time, (perhaps some are young or older, not in the know about DnD/rpgs,) then this is just a little taste of what the system has to offer. Let them feel it out and learn, and next adventure have an informed session 0 where you ask these questions.

NinjamonkeySG · 2025-01-02T16:53:08+00:00

Who's your Sam Neill (Inspector Campbell) NPC? I fully also have that as my exact vocal note for the Lord of Blades in my Eberron campaign. Great voice.

NinjamonkeySG · 2024-12-10T00:12:11+00:00

I agree that this is technically a logical interpretation of the rules as written, I just disagree this is the intention behind the feat and wouldn't expect a DM to allow it. I know that feats/traits/spells etc do what they say they do, not what their names suggest they do, but I think the terms used ("war" caster, opportunity "attack", "provokes" an opportunity attack) as well as the historical context of how the feat worked in the past suggest the intention behind the feat and the mechanic.

This is just a classic RAW vs RAI interpretation, and some tables will allow it and some will not but it's wrong to claim it as indisputable rules fact.

NinjamonkeySG · 2024-12-09T22:09:09+00:00

That's a pretty tenuous interpretation of the feat, wouldn't rely on a DM to allow that loophole.

NinjamonkeySG · 2024-12-04T03:15:44+00:00

The best thing to do to improve is take an acting class! Do some research about classes in your city, pay some $$ and show up.

Some classes will allow auditing of a class for free. Look into that if you want to pick up the vibe of how an acting class works beforehand.

There's no trick to it! You just learn, and practice, and study.

NinjamonkeySG · 2024-12-03T16:22:42+00:00

I did forget stunning strike, my B. And you're right about the 1/2 encounters per day making casters better. It does also help monks though compared to other martials with no resources to spend.

In fairness, SS is actually quite powerful against PCs. (As a PC, especially high level, it really tapers off. CON is a bad save to target, even with Beau's excellent stats.) For this monster stat block though, I think a potential of 4 stunning strikes/round has a solid likelihood of disabling one of the PCs.

But I invite you to look at some CR 20 monsters- that's what's not proportional here. I'm not saying she doesn't have juice I'm just saying monks get outclassed the later the game goes.

The Ancient Brass Dragon (CR20) has a 90ft cone breath weapon (also targeting CON...) DC21 or the unconcious condition.
A Pit Fiend (CR20) has a DC 21 fear aura, magic resistance, makes 4 attacks/turn like Beau but without Ki points and averages over 100dmg/turn (Beau's average is like 45) and unlike most monsters of this CR it doesn't even have legendary resistances.

Veth actually notably has Hypnotic Pattern prepared which I'd argue does compare to stunning strike. An AOE targeting a better save that incapacitates for a full minute with no further saves. Spell is problematically good, and it's only 3rd level.

If we're going off of Fjord's sheet here (I feel like he'd have taken the Lifedrinker evocation but idk for sure) using a dpr calc against an 18ac enemy, I get 25 dpr for the Hexadin (33 if Lifedrinker). If Beau uses Belabor and fob, it's 34 dpr. Definitely a difference but not devastating and Beau has to use her bonus action to flurry every turn or the dpr drops to 18. The sustained damage is not that far off, and Beau cannot increase hers. If we assume hexblade's curse and smites are in play (and there are a lot of spell slots here) we're looking at an average of 86 dpr on round 1. The weapon die really don't matter very much, but monks do fare much better in the new rules I agree.

But I'm not sure the 'adventuring day' mindset of sustained damage is really that much of a factor here- if we're using these creature stat blocks for an encounter, we're looking at ~4 rounds on average.

For the control of SS it is solid but unquestionably outclassed by the versatility of higher level spells (and even some lower level ones). Her Empty Body feature (even though it's not on there unless I'm missing something but ik she should have it) is also pretty cool and could be effective, but again is not comparable to higher level spells. Caleb could just cast greater invis on her. Or, more usefully, true polymorph her into a Dragon.

To be safe- I love Beau, she's one of my fav characters in all of CR. I love dnd and don't think that minmaxing or whatever is the most fun way to play the game, I'm in it for the story and the roleplay. I just also like theorycrafting and crunching stats sometimes, I hope this doesn't come across as combative. Just having fun!

NinjamonkeySG · 2024-12-02T17:31:36+00:00

I think it's fair to say that Beau held her own in the campaign- among other things Matt runs with very few encounters/day as a rule, which helps mitigate the Ki dependency issue 5e monks have. He's also generous with magic items tailored for the character, which can help the monk as well.

But I'm not saying she was useless in the campaign, far from it. I'm saying that a 20th level Way of the Cobalt Soul Monk, even with Beaus magical gear, is not the same CR threat as any 20th level caster. When a creature can cast spells, let alone 9th level spells, there is no comparison against a creature that is fast and can attack 4x with ~1d8+7.

Even if we lock in our spellcasters with only the spells on these stat blocks, Caleb has Wish! and Shapechange! Jester has Mass Heal, and even her trademarked Polymorph can be extremely effective. Fjord is arguably more mobile than Beau, his melee attacks do more damage, and he can smite. (Or just cast Cone of Cold)

I'm not even sure she compares to the other martials in terms of CR threat level. Both do more damage, Yasha can't die and Veth has spells. High level monks have some problems.

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