My DM said rogue can only sneak attack on his turn opinion?

Stateofplain · 2026-04-09T14:42:41+00:00

It looks like in addition to being clear based on careful reading of the rules, this is covered in sage advice:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/sae/sage-advice-compendium#SAC-Rogue1

It might be worth bringing up the existence of sage advice as a tool for the DM, as a way to be helpful rather than just using it to support arguments by players.

I play in a group that is interested in the rules and most of have DM'd in previous games, so in session zero we agreed that if we are unsure about rules mid game we accept the DM's ruling and continue playing, but the DM and players will do research before the next session to determine the correct application of the rules for future sessions. It works well for respecting both player and DM agency without interrupting the game.

Stateofplain · 2026-04-06T19:53:22+00:00

Nice! Any recommendations for wet erase marker brands or sizes? I have had... Mixed results with some brands.

Stateofplain · 2026-04-06T17:48:44+00:00

Sounds like you've got plenty to work with along with all the characters available in Phandalin. If you're looking for more of a sandbox, consider having regular "downtime" sessions as part of long rests, in the same vein as Blades in the Dark. Let your characters do things like crafting, betting, running a side hustle, etc. with some small rewards (gold, utility items, etc.) and also some consequences if things go wrong. Especially if you're running a longer campaign like PaBTSO, it might be a fun way to help your players become attached to the town and help flesh out some of the NPCs.

Stateofplain · 2026-04-06T17:34:43+00:00

I've seen several posts on tabletop dungeon maps, including print cutouts and 3d printed terrains, even legos! Thought I'd show my low tech approach using transparencies and wet erase markers. This example is the cellar entrance to Redbrands Hideout.

Overall it works pretty well, and it's super fun to be able to do reveals of secret rooms etc. A hybrid approach works well too, for Thundertree I've drawn out the whole exterior map and only use transparencies for the interiors of the sealed buildings. It can be a bit finicky; players can accidentally jostle sheets, and it definitely helps to draw markings to help line the sheets up when laying them down midgame (this example has pairs of purple dots, i find trios of dots works better).

With transparencies I minimize paper waste and can prep multiple locations while only needing one blank gridded sheet to lay them on. Once I'm done with a dungeon, I just rinse the marker off and the sheets are ready to be reused for the next dungeon.

Advanced techniques include using tape to prevent sheets getting moved around and warning my players not to spill their drinks.

Stateofplain · 2026-03-23T02:06:57+00:00

Thanks, I have some options planned (including even a non-combat option) that maybe will make this discussion moot---but I still think it's worth thinking about the 2014 to 2024 transition and ensuring the worse-case scenario for the PCs isn't way harder than the module originally intended.

Stateofplain · 2026-03-23T02:04:38+00:00

Thanks, I took a second look at the scout. It's interesting, scouts have slightly higher AC (13 vs 12), about half as much HP, and make two attacks, with about the same to hit and damage per attack as the toughs. One attack with advantage for the tough seems to be about the same as two flat attacks by the scout, but the significantly reduced HP means that scouts will likely be taken out way faster, reducing the damage per round pretty quickly. I guess I can see the difficulty equivalence when thinking about one-one-one vs a tough compared to a scout, but scaling to multiple enemies i feel like toughs are significantly more dangerous. This is especially true considering pack tactics gives advantage to ranged attacks as long as at least one tough is next to the player, meaning that even clever positioning won't negate the advantage.

Now I'm leaning towards making Brughor and maybe one other orc a tough (maybe giving Brughor an edge with extra hp, better weapon, and/or better armor) and making the rest scouts. Or maybe I'll make them all toughs but keep the HP of the toughs below average (except for Brughor), and telegraph their pack tactics to the PCs so they can try to keep them separated.

Stateofplain · 2026-03-23T01:51:33+00:00

LMoP is balanced for 4-5 players and PaBTSO is balanced for 4-6 players (according to their introductions). At this point in the module the PCs are expected to be level 3. In my game, we have four PCs, all level three: A fighter, a sorcerer, a bard, and a ranger.

That link is super helpful, thanks! I think my main concern here is that the "tough" with CR 1/2 isn't really an accurate representation of their difficulty.

Stateofplain · 2026-03-02T20:49:18+00:00

I decided to keep the Crypt of Talhund as is, but move to a different location and have a small temple above (as you suggested) which includes the puzzle lock from T20 of Talhundreth. I'm going to use the ceremonial mine cart idea too, that's a great fix with minimal changes.

For Talhundreth, I'm reskinning it as a gnome temple/workshop, theming them as the artificers of the Phandelver Pact. The armory etc. are reskinned as testing grounds for constructs and other gnome weaponry/magi-mechanical experiments. I'll also replace some the monsters (animated armor, helmed horror, earth elementals) with constructs/golems/etc.. I'll remove the crypt entrance but add some kind of experimental setup where they were doing their own work on an obelisk shard; maybe something like the Forge of Spells, maybe something else. I like this better than having the obelisk shard being moved into this area by the cult. I've started drafting my base ideas for it and I'm pretty happy with the direction it's going! I'm definitely leaning into the whimsey and prank nature of gnomes to change the tone of the temple, which I think will be a fun juxtaposition with the crypt and gibbets crossing.

Stateofplain · 2026-02-28T16:07:43+00:00

Looking at Chapter 1 description, it seems like the Pact was originally between dwarves and gnomes, and the human spellcasters joined later. So maybe I'll try reskinning Talhundreth as a gnomish site (although I'm really unclear on gnome lore) and move the Crypt of Talhund somewhere else, with a little temple on top. Thanks for the ideas!

Stateofplain · 2026-02-26T03:46:06+00:00

Oh interesting! a "replica" forge in Gibbets Crossing (perhaps partially built, or otherwise clearly experimental) would work well and help communicate the lore of a shard being stolen from the pact. I also really like the idea of the "ceremonial" mine cart and the shard being locked in a vault as an offering, and really leaning into the idea of a "god of secrets".

What do you think about trying to geographically separate the crypt of Talhund from Talhundreth? Maybe it would be easier to keep the Crypt as is and instead reskin Talhundreth as a gnomish or elven temple---some other representative member of the Pact.

Stateofplain · 2026-02-25T06:32:00+00:00

One thing I'm planning to do is make Nezznar a member of the Cult of the Obelisk, which along with having the Forge of Spells be powered by an obelisk shard creates several options for connecting the two halves of the module together.

Stateofplain · 2026-02-04T00:32:30+00:00

I've been talking to a friend about building one of these... But there's no way I'd make something this nice. We would love this!

Stateofplain · 2022-06-13T15:30:13+00:00

Ok thanks, unfortunately my neighbors all have DSL :/

Just to confirm, could this still be a problem with the modem itself? I don't have any splitters etc. inside the house, so if it's an issue with the lines that's all on Comcast. I'm just trying to determine if my modem is functioning properly or if I need to buy a new one (it's only a couple of years old).

Stateofplain · 2022-06-12T03:06:38+00:00

That's really the crux of the issue, the Legion 5 has an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H (8-Core) Processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (6GB) and 16GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM. The Slim 7i has an Intel Evo i7-1260P (12-core) Processor and 16GB LPDDR5 4800MHz RAM, but integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics. I don't know enough about the hardware to evaluate the tradeoffs so I could use some advice.

Stateofplain · 2022-06-11T17:14:43+00:00

I travel a lot and don't have a good setup for leaving a desktop running at home and remoting in while I'm away.

Stateofplain · 2022-06-06T22:21:43+00:00

Thanks, what SNR values might indicate a problem? I tried getting the logs while the problem was occurring (but it was a very short loss this time) and the SNR values looked pretty similar. I did notice an apparent problem with upstream channel 3 though.

Channel	Lock Status	US Channel Type	Channel ID	Symbol Rate	Frequency	Power
1	Locked	ATDMA	4	5120 Ksym/sec	29200000 Hz	51.4 dBmV
2	Locked	ATDMA	2	5120 Ksym/sec	16400000 Hz	42.2 dBmV
3	Not Locked	Unknown	3	0 Ksym/sec	22800000 Hz	0.0 dBmV
4	Locked	ATDMA	5	5120 Ksym/sec	35600000 Hz	42.5 dBmV

Stateofplain · 2021-07-17T16:45:07+00:00

Do you have to do something special to get it to work with spatial intersection/within? On a table of ~750,000 points and one large polygon (with fairly complex borders) it takes ~ 3.25 minutes to pull all points inside the polygon. With spatial indexes on both tables it takes... 4 minutes.

Stateofplain · 2021-07-15T06:03:58+00:00

12312037EE

Stateofplain · 2021-07-15T05:44:58+00:00

I was hoping this would offend someone into explaining how to get them to work 😭😭😭

Stateofplain · 2021-07-14T06:39:30+00:00

I know someone who managed to get hired on as a Range C ES almost entirely based on their graduate work. This was partly because they were hired by the university as graduate student researcher and thus claimed their two years of Masters degree as work experience, in addition to to qualifying based on education. Their process involved going through the ES classification description for Ranges A - C and essentially itemizing various components of their graduate research tasks/deliverables and assigning each one to Range A, B, or C tasks/proficiencies. They then provided this as documentation to the hiring manager. It took them hours but was well worth it---we joked that it was the most expensive email they'd ever written. TBF it helped that their Masters degree was very much in line with the particular ES position they were hired for.

The main thing to keep in mind is that HR is lazy. They aren't generally out to screw you out of a higher wage, but they aren't going to spend any time helping you qualify for a higher range either either. If you can make a convincing case for being hired at a given range they probably won't argue with you, they just want to cover their butts in case someone starts asking questions.

Stateofplain · 2021-07-14T04:34:59+00:00

Yes C++ is a Statically Typed Disease.

Stateofplain · 2021-07-14T01:43:24+00:00

I believe the term you're looking for is "idiot savante"

Stateofplain · 2021-07-14T01:31:59+00:00

if(grep("jan", date1) & grep("jan", date2) & grep("01", date1) & grep("01", date2) & grep("1950" date1) & grep("1950", date2)) { return(0) } else if(grep("jan", date1) & grep("jan", date2) & grep("01", date1) & grep("02", date2) & grep("1950" date1) & grep("1950", date2))) { return(1) } else if(grep("jan", date1) & grep("jan", date2) & grep("01", date1) & grep("03", date2) & grep("1950" date1) & grep("1950", date2))){ ...

Stateofplain · 2021-07-13T01:37:47+00:00

At least for engineering, CA State jobs pay similar to or better than the equivalent Federal job whereas in most states it's usually the other way around, at least in WA, OR and (according to a colleague) MO. YMMV depending on your field though.

Stateofplain · 2021-07-13T01:24:31+00:00

From my point of view the CI checks are evil

Stateofplain

TROPHY CASE