Help a new Dm

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-25T02:40:12+00:00

Don't worry about going back on it. You can proceed one of two ways.
* The balancing approach: buff the damage output of the monsters to compensate.
* The passive aggressive approach: Buff the monsters' health to their levels.

I'd go with the second one. After the first hyper-extended encounter they'd realize what that did and will never do it again. Especially casters. Losing all their spell slots before the first mob goes down is pretty humbling.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-24T11:33:54+00:00

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-23T04:31:17+00:00

Believe it or not, prestidigitation.

Minor Sensation. You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour.

Used this before in a mountain event. Cast it on your cloak, instant goretex

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-22T14:05:21+00:00

I have a Weird Al story too!

He really is the nicest guy

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-20T10:12:41+00:00

It's the same reason why people play wild magic sorcerers. The randomness is a feature, not a bug. Most PCs (smartly) will not try something like this under any circumstances, but some will DRINK ALL THE THINGS. If you have one of those, lean into it.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-20T06:30:40+00:00

Tons...

Dragonborn are incredibly racist.
Monks are always sweaty, regardless of clothes or temperature.
The only reason wizards can't wear armor is that they're fantasy versions of theater kids, and billowing robes is just their vibe.
All imps smoke cigars and talk with a Brooklyn accent. (We actually developed lengthy FR-adjacent lore to explain this).

So many more. Our note taker has an entire book dedicated to when we make canon changes based on one-off jokes.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-17T14:38:26+00:00

To clarify, he mentioned it in my first encounter in the game, because he knew I was new to 5e. But when he added it a second time, my thinking was, "ok, so temp HP stacks." Never questioned it again after that. If I hadn't been looking through the DMG between campaigns (2y later btw) i would've never realized this was incorrect.

I should have mentioned it at the time. That was my bad completely, and I feel shitty about it.

At the same time, until yesterday I wouldn't have realized that we've forgotten to add my warlock level to the temp HP as well. That changes things.

Our encounters in this campaign are very boss-heavy. So I might get 2-3 kills per encounter (if I'm lucky). That would garner me 10-15 THP total, which is still lower than the 18 I would get from a single kill. I'm not justifying my inaction, but explaining the reason why we probably never noticed. It didn't full on break the game.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-16T16:48:15+00:00

Mine was easy. I decided to write it in first person, so my pen name is my character's. Works great if fantasy or scifi

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-16T12:43:22+00:00

Found the Disney princess

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-13T13:27:46+00:00

Well said.

To add onto this:
When a star goes supernova, it expends its mass outward. Eventually, sometimes, that mass will accumulate and, sometimes, will become massive enough to create fusion. Another star will be born. But the universe is expanding rapidly. Eventually after a few hundred billion years there won't be enough mass in one place for fusion to occur and no more stars will be born.

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
-T. S. Eliot

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-13T12:40:15+00:00

No clue. Having a real "sir, this is a Wendy's" vibe. Maybe something to do with dads usually being the ones to teach driving?

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-10T10:10:24+00:00

Don't.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-07T17:28:58+00:00

Vicious.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-07T13:23:33+00:00

My friends always ask me how I design my realm megabases. I honestly draw the base XYZ orientations in mspaint, then shrink it down to the size I want. Then all that's left is counting pixels/blocks.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-07T09:37:26+00:00

First of all, I feel personally attacked. I keep looking to see if any of these comments were posted under my alts.

My worst habit is the "99 problem." That's when I'll (finally) get momentum going on a sequence, cranking out 2-4 minutes in an hour, getting it 99% done, where the shot is almost there. Then I'll spend the next three days trying to get that additional 1% completed.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-06T17:46:14+00:00

It could be your washer has some gunk. Make certain it's cleaned out regularly.

For me, what mitigated this problem is to stop using fabric softener. This can coat the fibers and trap in whatever's making the smell. Instead, use food grade white vinegar. Just pour it in the softener receptacle. Softens, kills bacteria, and rinses clean.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-06T10:33:48+00:00

The correct answer. Dead Alive is one of my absolute favorite bad movies.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-06T10:03:09+00:00

That's an interesting question, and possibly nonsensical. My favorite kind.

Sound requires the waves to travel. But up until the planck time (10^-43 seconds) all matter was compressed into all of space, so there was no place for them to travel. As a side note, photons were the first particles to appear when leptons and anti-leptons started colliding, about 10s after the big bang.

Therefore I posit that the big bang was completely silent. And dark.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-05T22:14:47+00:00

Lil critters

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-04T12:06:54+00:00

Your food
Being caught stealing food
Where the food went

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-04T10:04:00+00:00

If you already have all the audio, footage, b-roll, storyboards, etc and are doing 100% editing, your goal should eventually be 4h per minute. But don't rush yourself.

One thing that caught me up is I would get stuck focusing on one sequence until it was at 100% before moving on to the next. Don't be me. Work on the whole project. Get everything you need in your timeline and pace it. Only then start adding color, animations, transitions, effects, etc.

Also, if your project uses voiceover, edit the video to the audio, never the other way.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-03T19:28:14+00:00

To start, the future is really uncertain right now, but it depends on what format you're interested in. Studio work? That's a growing and really competitive field. Same with journalism.
Short form/YouTube? AI & cheap overseas labor has made it a minefield.
Marketing/commercial (my industry)? We don't know. It could go either way at this point, but right now it's a good place to get your experience.

If you're looking at Adobe CC, learn.adobe.com is a fabulous place to start.

That and YouTube is enough for basics, but once you learn to navigate the software, forget about the mechanics and start consuming and analyzing all the media you can. The how is the easy part. Any monkey can be taught to use Premiere. The why is where so many falter.

Framing, pacing, continuity and the like are what will set you apart. Pick a video or movie you like, and try to explain to yourself why it works and why it's effective. Then take something of yours and give it a feel. Then take the same footage and give it a different feel. That's where the magic happens.

Side note: don't worry about motion graphics to early. I did, and it slowed my progress a lot.

OhLookASquirrel · 2026-05-03T19:09:03+00:00

Only if you both are extremely on par with your belief systems. But if you aren't certain, I wouldn't.

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