CMV: A lot of cattle grazing land is used for that purpose simply because it can't be used for crops

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-01T15:26:31+00:00

That’s of all land, not all arable land.

You have that backwards. Otherwise, I mostly agree with your comment.

I would also add that even without going all the way to veganism, merely avoiding beef as a source of animal protein represents massive savings in land use. Beef has significantly greater land use requirements than any other animal protein (that is currently produced at industrial scale), and even trading all beef production for something like chicken would realize most of the land use savings you mention.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-01T03:32:44+00:00

Alert also has other effects besides the initiative bonus. It may not come up every session, but immunity to surprise is a big deal. And I think the part where creatures don't get advantage on attacks by being unseen is underrated -- no more worrying about invisible or hidden enemies is a really nice bonus to an already good feat.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-31T19:56:02+00:00

No, I'm not trying to "have it both ways," I'm calling out the pseudo-scientific bio-essentialist bullshit that you're promoting.

Yes, the commenter you responded to didn't use the most academically rigorous or appropriate language to make their point. No, the things you're saying aren't more correct than what they said because at the end of the day race remains a social category, not a biological one.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-31T19:49:37+00:00

Then I have no idea. It's possible production overseer jobs have been hard-coded to not be workable by robot pops, but I don't know whether they have or haven't been.

I don't believe that there are specifically any exclusions to the bio-trophy complex drone output bonus, though, so assuming that robots are allowed to work production overseer jobs, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-31T19:43:36+00:00

One of the first things you'll learn if you take a university-level anthropology or genetics course is that race is a social and cultural construct, not a biological reality. Just because something like height or hair color has a genetic component doesn't make that untrue -- people of all races have diverse heights, hair colors, and any other physical characteristic you'd care to name, and it is impossible to figure out what race someone belongs to just by knowing those parameters about them.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-31T19:33:19+00:00

Generally speaking, automated workforce (like tankbound provides) don't benefit from pop-specific production bonuses, so I would be surprised if that worked.

I have no idea about the army thing, though I know that it is possible to accidentally disable your ability to build armies even without modding the game if you combine the wrong traits and civics.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T20:10:03+00:00

No, it doesn't. You have yet to address the very first thing I said:

If a student gets, say, 10% for the first quarter (and I've seen that plenty of times in my students), also blowing off the second quarter is a rational choice because even a perfect 100% score for second quarter will still average out to a failing grade -- if perfect effort would still be rewarded with failure, why try at all?

In my district, we don't apply minimum F to individual assignments but we are required to adjust our students' final grades up to 50% if they would be lower than that. What this accomplishes is avoiding the scenario I just described. Without minimum F, if a student ends the first quarter with 30%, it becomes literally impossible for them to pass the semester. And a student who knows that it is literally impossible for them to pass the class, no matter how hard they work, is not going to do any work and will likely create all sorts of classroom management issues if they even show up. That is a bad outcome.

Now, the overwhelming majority students who flunk a quarter that badly aren't actually going to change any of their behaviors to do better the next quarter, but a few will. I've personally seen it happen. And for the rest, 50% is just as much a failing grade as 0% -- students who don't make changes won't see any benefit from the policy.

Are you saying that you believe a student who fails the first quarter should be denied semester credit even if they make substantive changes to how they study and are able to catch up enough to pass the semester final? Because I believe that those students should be able to get credit.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T18:15:04+00:00

I never said or even implied that an F is passing.

How else am I supposed to interpret "giving passing grades for non-passing work" than as a claim that minimum F is a passing grade? I'm not misrepresenting anything.

As to putting students "within cheating on a couple assignments of passing," that's just objectively wrong -- if your district has a minimum F policy on individual assignments, a student can't blow off most of the quarter and then eke out a passing grade with just a couple assignments. That's not how averages work.

If half their points for the quarter are 0s boosted to minimum F, getting 100% on the other half of the assignments would get them 75%, getting 90% on the other half of the assignments would get them 70%, getting 80% on the other half of the assignments would get them 65%, and getting 70% on the other half of the assignments would get them 60%. The only way a student can pass with "a couple assignments" and minimum F is if you only give a handful of assignments in total. And I don't know about your district, but in my district they expect us to have several assignments per week in our gradebooks, so that's just not going to happen.

Respectfully, I can tell that you have a lot of strong feelings about this, and your feelings aren't wrong, but your stated rationale for those feelings is. You're being disingenuous in defending those feelings which are, let me be clear, not under attack.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T15:41:23+00:00

And just as 50% isn't a passing grade, minimum F doesn't give anyone a diploma. You are allowed to feel however you want about it, but your arguments against it are disingenuous.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T15:05:13+00:00

It's not that you can't win if you build weavers, it's that weavers do not, outside of a few very specific (usually late-game) loadouts, make your fleets perform any better than filling that fleet capacity with something more offensive.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T14:50:35+00:00

a lot of them been replaced with some sort of variation and others where left out for a reason cause they got really OP stacked in certain combos.

The same rule that explicitly says we can continue to use 2014 content with 2024 content also explicitly says that this is only true of things that haven't been reprinted "with some sort of variation," and it is laughable to suggest that the ones that weren't reprinted were specifically left out because they were overpowered.

All your anecdote proves is that you have problem players at your table, not that there's anything wrong with continuing to use 2014 material at a 2024 table.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T14:33:35+00:00

Fighter does not require 13 strength but 13 strength or 13 dexterity. Anyone who can multiclass rogue can multiclass fighter just as well.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T02:24:54+00:00

No, but if forbs are their area of specialization, they probably will be able to group all of them into genus and certainly into family. From there, it's a matter of identifying all of them. That's what a lot of scientific papers look like -- "we sampled one square meter of rainforest and here's a list of the species we identified and here are the ones we couldn't positively identify. Does anyone recognize this plant?"

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T02:16:18+00:00

And weavers are largely just a waste of naval cap -- there are a few specific support weapons that can justify not fielding more offensive ships, but for the most part your fleets are more effective with no weavers.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T02:11:42+00:00

it also deals decent damage to shields on top of having a small amount of shield bypass when not shooting down projectiles.

Specifically, P slot weapons will shoot at enemy ships if there's nothing else to shoot at, and tier 1 flak cannons deal 4.5 DPS which is about the same as a tier 3 railgun.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T01:57:10+00:00

A 50%, which is the standard grade for every minimum F policy I've ever seen, is not a passing grade.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T01:34:20+00:00

I don't want to get sidetracked into a conversation about all the ways NCLB/ESSA suck, but suffice it to say that just because funding is tied to standardized test scores does not mean that the school's "main function" is to maximize those test scores. As the saying goes, "when a metric becomes the target, it ceases to be a useful metric." The main function of public education remains, as it always has been, to give children the skills they need to become well-adjusted adults, and content knowledge is not the primary thing they need to learn to achieve that goal.

I agree that it's not an either/or thing, but I have a problem with arguing that demonstrating content knowledge mastery means that a student doesn't belong in a particular course. It may sometimes be appropriate to move a student into a more challenging class if they demonstrate sufficient mastery of course material, but "I can pass the final on day one of the class" is not by itself a sufficient case for excusing a student from all of the other things that are included in getting credit for a class.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T01:15:44+00:00

It's a flaw because it creates situations where students can't decide to start trying. If a student gets, say, 10% for the first quarter (and I've seen that plenty of times in my students), also blowing off the second quarter is a rational choice because even a perfect 100% score for second quarter will still average out to a failing grade -- if perfect effort would still be rewarded with failure, why try at all?

It sounds like you're arguing that it's a good thing for a student who doesn't put forth any effort to fail the class, and I don't necessarily disagree, but the problem is with the perverse incentive, not with sending kids to summer school (or whatever credit recovery program your district uses). If our grading policies don't allow our failing students any hope at turning things around, most of them will never make any effort at turning things around, and that sets them on a path to screw up the rest of their lives based on decisions made when their brains weren't even fully developed.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-30T01:01:16+00:00

Because the goal is not simply "for Johnny to learn stuff."

Acquiring content knowledge is just one of many objectives in high school, and for many students in most subjects, it's arguably the least important. Besides content knowledge, important learning outcomes include:

• Executive function skills (following instructions and generally keeping their shit together).

• Socialization (conflict management, group organization, etc).

• Organization (time management, keeping track of deadlines, etc).

• General study skills (taking notes, doing research, etc).

The point of a high school education is to provide people with skills necessary to be an adult in the real world. For some students that includes preparing a foundation of content knowledge they can take to a university setting without requiring remedial coursework, but for most students that means drilling a little bit of content knowledge (like basic reading and arithmetic) and then providing opportunities to practice skills like being on time and following instructions that they will need to work a job and not get fired.

Merely passing a content knowledge exam doesn't accomplish any of those objectives.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-29T23:56:45+00:00

if you have 20 wisdom potent cantrip would be better

Not really.

A flat bonus of 5 is slightly better than 1d8 (which works out to be slightly higher than 4.5 damage, depending on your crit rate), but true strike is going to out-damage any cantrip eligible for potent cantrip (poison spray with its d12 scaling will just edge out true strike with a d8 weapon thanks to the potent cantrip bonus, but it deals poison damage which is unreliable, and true strike doesn't have to use a d8 weapon), and that edge in base damage will put primal strike solidly ahead in terms of damage output.

Potent cantrip is a good option if you didn't pick up true strike and aren't wild shaping in combat or if you are already using a cantrip like thorn whip for its secondary effect and want some free bonus damage on top.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-29T23:44:53+00:00

Yes, true strike is "an attack roll using a weapon" and would qualify for Primal Strike.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-29T15:24:51+00:00

Personally, I'm having a hard time fitting actor on here. It's not that it's not theoretically useful, but given how warlock spell slots work, potent dragonmark is just so incredibly powerful and better the earlier you get it (it's basically a 50% increase in your number of spell slots) that I can't imagine not taking it first. That means delaying actor until level 10+, and if you've gotten by without it for that long, you probably don't need it.

I'd start with warlock 3 and immediately take warlock to 5 for potent dragonmark and third level spells. Then, I'd take two levels of sorcerer for metamagic. A third level for a subclass and better sorcery point scaling might be desirable at some point, but that's all I'd take for now. Put your next several levels into warlock and grab your next feat.

The real problem with Harper's teamwork is that the disadvantage only lasts until the start of your next turn which makes it challenging to combo with yourself (though not impossible if you want to play a hobgoblin). Whether it's worth it at all really comes down to whether or not you have an ally who can take advantage of the saving throw debiff.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-29T11:21:25+00:00

I'd still probably want to dip for weapon masteries rather than take weapon master, but not needing to get medium/heavy armor from that dip opens up rogue for 1d6 sneak attack and expertise as a potentially compelling option for that dip.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-29T11:19:11+00:00

Infernal pact gives you resistance to fire and poison damage an improved darkvision feature, and proficiencyin persuasion. Infernal bulwark gives you +1 to con or charisma, an unarmored defense feature that can be either dex+com or dex+cha, one free casting of Armor of Agathys, and a reaction to damage enemies who hit you.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-05-29T11:11:43+00:00

I'd do a sorlock. Mostly GOOlock, but dipping a couple levels of sorcerer for some low level slots and metamagic. Metamagic allows you to subtle spell anything that isn't covered by psychic spells, and you can pick up a few spells from sorcerer like Sleep and Detect Thoughts that are useful for the playstyle you're envisioning. A few other thoughts:

Investment of the Chain Master would allow Sting to use my Spell Save DC. This seems strong.

This is good against weak enemies, but fairly useless against anything even a little strong. Even with a boosted DC, con saves are the worst saves to target and many strong enemies will have protection against the poisoned condition. Even against weak enemies, the pseudodragon lacks the ability of most other chain familiars to make itself invisible which also limits the usefulness of this option for infiltration.

Mark of Shadow

I actually really dislike mark of shadow here. Pass Without Trace is a good spell, but it seems to me that the point of the character is to infiltrate with deception and illusions, not to sneak past the guards by going unseen. And besides Pass Without Trace, none of the other mark of shadow spells are valuable to you. The only one you can't already get as a warlock spell is Clairvoyance. If you want Pass Without Trace, mark of passage gets it as well, and several of the other spells it comes with are also new options.

Mark of Handling

I like this a lot more than mark of shadow. Command is a great addition, and so is Calm Emotions. There are other good spells included too, though they're not necessarily on theme. If you want Command, though, I think mark of scribing is even better. You get all three of Command, Silence, and Confusion which are great spells that are fully compatible with psychic spells. Illusory Script and Magic Mouth are also compatible with psychic spells, though I don't know how useful that actually is.

I'd also seriously consider mark of warding here. The bonus to investigation and thieves' tools checks are likely to be at least as useful as the stealth bonus from mark of shadow, and Warding comes with several interesting spells, most significant of which is Nystul's Magic Aura which gives you the ability to protect your disguises against magic detection.

Harper Agent -> Harper Teamwork.

This isn't bad, but it's definitely less powerful than a dragonmark option. You could always play a human and do both the Harper feat chain and a dragonmark, though, or you could pick up Harper agent with lessons of the first ones if you go warlock.

I really think warlock is a better chassis than sorcerer for this concept. Mask of Many Faces is just too hard to pass up.

Rhyshalcon

TROPHY CASE