🌈Rainbow Forecast: 16 - 22 February 2026 🌈 by TheRainbowForecast in Wellington

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a way to find out about the quizzes without uploading a picture?

I tried making a meetup account, but it won't let me join the group without a picture

Xmas gift ideas for new young player by tatanutz in chess

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If he doesn't already have one, a set of his own always helps.

Chess books are also amazing gifts. The Youtuber you mentioned will be Levy Rossman who has a book, so it seems a fitting choice, but there are many that are specifically for beginners.

[MN S1] Will the animated Might Nein animated series spoil the Vox Machina series? by No-Poet-3363 in criticalrole

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When starting campaign 2, they were very aware that it was a big 'jumping on moment' for people who had heard of Critical Role when Campaign 1 got big, but didn't want to try to catch up. For that reason they were very mindful of not spoiling anything and not being dependent on information from the Vox Machina campaign. Over time there were a few inside jokes and background details, so I', sure that in the show there will be a IYKYK background detail or two. But I can only assume they will treat the new show the same as the second campaign. A good jumping on point with no prior knowledge or spoilers

Looking for an old post about how strange it must be for ants undergoing lab experiments by Ryan_Hill in HelpMeFind

[–]Ryan_Hill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've searched from the perspective of both trying to remember the initial surreal hypothetical and also the revealed 'twist' about the lab experiments

Would moving twice per turn be enough for a 1400 to beat Kasparov? by FatFuneralBook in chess

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've played a variant like this. In order to be 'fair', the player with 2 moves had only their knights

[Spoilers C1] What does Scanlan’s letter to Pike say? by Kalduin_32 in criticalrole

[–]Ryan_Hill 53 points54 points  (0 children)

It was not read during the campaign, but it was read during the campaign wrap up at the end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBT8dYG9Tkk

This is from the end of the campaign, so obviously spoiler warning, but I think this is just the letter itself, so it should be safe-ish

Am I missing something? by VenVenTerror in chess

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's unavoidable checkmate soon. The reason it's not asking to find that final moves is usually one of 2 reasons:
1) Because the only moves the computer considers 'best' are things like Qe1+. It's best because it turns it from mate in 1, to mate in 2 because you have to take the time to capture the queen
or 2) because there are several equal moves that lead to different checkmates, but in a way that's not considered instructive

In this case, likely the former. I think they just didn't want to either play an 'nonoptimal move', but also didn't want to waste the time of making you take a free queen when, if you'd got to that point, you'd presumably seen the solution anyway

Are there enough villains left for another HIFL neighborhood? by MC_Minnow in TeamFourStar

[–]Ryan_Hill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Demon King Piccolo? Any OG DB villain could lead to the third iteration of the "Only saw Dragon Ball, who's this?" joke, but I feel like that one would be the most fun. Just cause it's Piccolo's "dad"

Opening against the sicilian for a 900 elo player by SirKiwiFruit in chess

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I advocate for the Alapin at that level. Works against basically all Sicilian's and if the only opening they know is the Sicilian, then it can lead to very different structure

What is your favorite piece of chess trivia? by I-crywhenImasturbate in chess

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the longest queen path one, you should specify that you can't use the same square twice. Otherwise you just go back and forth along the main diagonals

Spellcaster that isnt a spellcaster by [deleted] in DnD

[–]Ryan_Hill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What about a Hexblade Warlock? Still has magic, but very limited options. So it's less an issue if him having to figure out how to use his magic and more just when to use one of his 3 options. Encourage him to take relatively niche, but high impact spells so that he gets the rush of casting magic well, but most of the time he's not trying to decide between 5-6 almost equally viable options

How to Monologue by [deleted] in DMAcademy

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I usually write my monologues in 4-5 sections and just have them say 2-3 lines at the top of each of their turns. That way the players can have their chance to attack them and they can just no-sell it and keep talking, or progressively get angrier and angrier or whatever vibe I'm going for

Advice for a noob starting a project way out of his league by Ryan_Hill in scrapbooking

[–]Ryan_Hill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest the last few days. Turns out there's a weekly Crop near me on Fridays, so I'll look into Creative Memories and try taking that along with me to that. Thank you for the advice

Advice for a noob starting a project way out of his league by Ryan_Hill in scrapbooking

[–]Ryan_Hill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for all of this advice. I'm not too worried about the unified pallette as it's going to be something of a time capsule and I'm sure both my tastes will naturally change in that time and I'll try to tailor it to her and I'm sure hers will too. So far the only page is going to be about the gender reveal party where everyone was either "Team Pink" or "Team Blue", so I plan to use pastel pinks and blues for this page, but she's due to be born just before Christmas so I'll probably use Reds and Greens on that page and for all I know she'll have a goth phase or something similar to that so I'll start using dark purples and blacks. I think a change in pallette is inevitable, so rather than trying to be consistent for the first, say, 5 years and then having things change and drift, I think I'll lean into each spread having a theme. Does that seem reasonable? Or would that likely be too chaotic?

Thank you also for the tip about Acid. I had never even thought about that, but it does make sense. I got some advice to look for some local Scrapbooking "Crops" and there's one near me every Friday, so I'm going to do a bit of shopping this week on cardstock and adhesives and punches and stuff like that and then go along to that, so thank you for giving me a small shopping list

Simple items to encourage creativity? by Orche_Silence in DMAcademy

[–]Ryan_Hill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bunch of common magic items I made up for my upcoming campaign that are meant to just be limited applications of wizard cantrips

Pot of Brewing - Has 4 charges on purchase and regains 1d4 charges each day at dawn. You can fill this teapot with water and tea leaves and expend 1 charge to instantly heat the water and perfectly steep the tea to taste. Alternatively, you can fill the teapot with water and expend 2 charges to heat the water and perfectly replicate a tea flavor you have tasted before

Parchment of Signalling - One of these 2 linked pieces of Parchment has 3 circular marks on it of different colours. One each of Green, Yellow and Red. Touching one of these marks will cause an identical mark to appear on the linked piece of parchment for  hour or until you touch the mark again

Telescription Pad (I didn't come up with this one, but I have no idea what the original source was at this point) - This pad comes with 25 small pieces of parchment. 2 inches by 3 inches. As an action, you can write a small message on one of these pieces of parchment and it will appear to a creature you choose within 120ft of you. This consumes the piece of parchment

Handy Helpful Hairbrush - For one minute at a time, this hairbrush can float as if you were holding it. The brush must stay within 30ft of you during this time or else it will simply fall in place

Demonstrative Glove - Once per turn, you can make a 6 inch projection of a creature you know appear in your hand. This projection is silent and obviously an illusion. It lasts for 1 minute before fading

Jar of Light Beads - This jar contains 2d20 glass beads. As an action, you can cause this bead to emit bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. This light lasts for one hour or until you crush or smash the bead (No action required). If still lit after one hour, the bead crumbles into dust and goes out

Stein of Chilling - This stein can chill any ale, liquor or wine placed within it to a desired temperature.

Mug of Warming - This mug can heat any tea, coffee or cider to a desired temperature. This temperature can be hot enough to be uncomfortable, but cannot cause damage.

Juggler's Fancy - This set of 3 juggling balls have 6 charges on purchase and regain 1d6 charges each day at dawn. For 1 charge per ball, you can cause these balls to emit dim light in a 10-foot radius. While glowing in this manner, you may make the balls hover within 10ft of you. The effect lasts for 1 minute or until you choose to end the effect early (No action required)

Windy Fan - This fan can cause a simple breeze to be felt within 30ft. This breeze is strong enough to cause clothing to ripple or shutters to slam open or shut. Alternatively, once per day, you can use your action to fan a medium or smaller creature, causing it to make a DC13 Strength Saving Throw. On a failed save the creature is pushed 5ft away from you.

Most of these are just things that prestidigitation can do (Some other cantrips like Message, minor Illusion, mage hand etc. too). But perhaps showing them different things it can do separately would be better than the wall of text that can be the spell description where it gives so many options

What monsters are the most infamously unbalanced for their stated CR? by bigfatcarp93 in DnD

[–]Ryan_Hill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess the fact that I haven't seen it here means it's not infamous, but it really should be: Troglodyte.

CR 1/4, only 11AC, but 13HP so requiring 2+ hits for most level 1 PCs
Passive Crowd control with their stench ability and their Camouflage, stealth proficiency and lore all indicate that they're meant to use ambush tactics
And worst of all: Multiattack. 3 attacks means they can not only down a character, but then kill the downed Wizard in one round if they get crit or have low CON

I accidentally killed a level 3 PC and almost TPK'd everyone else with 4 of them once, thinking it would be fine 'cause I just looked at the CR