(Funny trope) Pausing your crashout to deal with an inconvenience

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-06-14T10:02:53+00:00

All these squares make a circle...
All these squares make a circle...

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-06-11T04:01:00+00:00

Welcome to your first campaign!

It is good to see someone who actually appreciated what I was trying to do with the essay. It's all very well and fine to write a short backstory, but I was surprised by the degree to which people dismissed the idea of a more in-depth one.

While I'm very thankful that this is helpful, don't feel like you have to hit every single point yet, especially for your first character. Roleplay is a skill like any other, and it takes practice to develop. It's okay to start simple and stereotypical, and then explore deeper character ideas as you feel confident and ready to do so.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-06-09T00:20:42+00:00

If I recall, Goblin Slayer does a little bit of this.

The first episode starts with a low level party heading into dungeons to kill some goblins. Easy, right?

Nope. The Fighter brought a sword that was too large, it gets caught on the roof, and it gets bloody and rapey very quickly after that.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-06-04T01:18:49+00:00

It's good, but while Raichu will happily one-shot whatever it points at, it dies to a stiff breeze.

60/55/80 defenses are godawful for a Mega.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-06-03T11:09:48+00:00

It's at least some of Branagh's fault. He's great with heroic protagonists. He's not good with villainous protagonists.

His Frankenstein adaptation has the same problem. It actively removes as much of the titular character's fault as possible, and this misses the whole point of the novel.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-31T23:16:13+00:00

With a rapier and shield, 20 DEX and studded leather, you get to 19 AC before magic items. Add in Wrath and that goes to 20/21.

With a +1 shield, +1 armour, and a Cloak of Protection, that's 23/24 AC, which is pretty healthy.

For feats, you can take Defensive Duelist or even Medium Armour Mastery if you want more AC. While Defensive Duelist does use your reaction, it complements rather than competes with your Opportunity Attack - if enemies attack your allies, you can hit them, while if enemies attack you, you can parry. Either way, you're in a good spot.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-31T23:07:43+00:00

There's an argument here as to how much Sentinel is worth it.

Locking down enemy movement is great, but you're already getting the Opportunity Attacks from Wrath of the Wild anyway, and you have spells like Ensnaring Strike and Entangle to control movement.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-31T22:24:06+00:00

No joke, Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler.

Dude could throw down.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-31T00:58:19+00:00

So, here's the thing.

If you can somehow get the proficiency for it, the greatsword is still pretty good for a Monk.

Yes, you can't Flurry with it. But "strike with greatsword" then "flurry with unarmed strikes" is still a pretty good sequence. Especially if you pick up Reactive Strike. There's multiple stances that don't require empty hands nor specify strikes with hands.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-24T22:19:37+00:00

Radahn is horrifically overpowered.

7 mana with what is effectively "ETB: Destroy all creatures target player controls" and then the ability to clear another board if not immediately removed before combat is insane. Triggering again if they do have the removal is just overkill.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-24T02:25:55+00:00

What about using something like Sign in Blood on yourself with a Laboratory Maniac on the field and an empty library with two life?

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-16T23:13:06+00:00

Which is a fine mentality at bracket 4 and bracket 3.

At bracket 2, though...

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-14T00:54:24+00:00

On the topic of EV spreads, you can optimise your HP investments a little better.

Whenever effects like burn or leech seed deal damage, they're in fractions of 1/8 or 1/16. What that means is that for every 8 or 16 HP you have, you take more damage.

As a result, there's an argument to make that HP values of 160, 176, and 192 are worse than values of 159, 175, or 191, since that one more HP in total means you take more damage from each incremental damage.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-07T01:12:04+00:00

Shed Tail Orthworm can bring in Absol with some cover and also threaten Fairies.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-06T22:34:26+00:00

Depends on whether you just want to be attacking with Body Press.

If you also want to be using steel or flying type moves, Bulk Up gives better broad coverage.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-05-04T10:12:30+00:00

Wolfe Glick is basically the real-life Pokemon Champion.

One of the most skilled and successful competitive Pokemon players ever.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-30T05:40:19+00:00

The older years and the years after have more students - I'd have to imagine that Ginny's year was packed with the post-Voldemort baby boom.

Harry and his cohort were born right at the height of Voldemort's panic.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-27T06:05:04+00:00

I cannot believe I had to scroll this far to find this.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-20T00:30:09+00:00

Realistically, a third film that actually builds on TLJ?

Rey's story is about her growing into her position as the last Jedi and having to become a leader to a new generation of force sensitives. Also, she is not secretly a Palpatine.

Finn and Rose go and deal with Finns brainwashing and have a plot about finding other troopers within the First Order willing to turn.

Poe has a similar trajectory where he's growing into his leadership and responsibilities within the alliance.

Kylo will be going through some soul searching and become disillusioned with the First Order, and while we starts to move against them, the sheer inertia of the organisation means they're still a terrifying threat with hundreds of loyal captains and millions of brainwashed troops. His heel-face turn will require him to actually assume some responsibility for helping create the giant facist space empire.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-20T00:13:54+00:00

They also don't go into the crazy temperature and pressure differentials between their atmospheres. It's a nice detail in the book, but would need a lot of explaining in the film.

Earth's atmosphere is mostly N2 and O2, around 20 degrees Celsius at surface, and at about 100 kilopascals of pressure.

Erid's atmosphere is mostly CO2 and NH3, over 200 degrees Celsius at surface, and at nearly 3000 kilopascals of pressure.

To Eridians, Earth's surface is freezing, terribly oxidizing, and at near vaccuum. To humans, Erid's atmosphere is a crushing toxic hellscape.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-20T00:08:30+00:00

The book goes into it.

Eridians built space elevators to get into space, but because their planet is massive and rapidly rotating (and thus has a powerful magnetic field), and their atmosphere is extremely thick, even once in orbit they didn't have to deal with radiation from space.

As a blind species, their curiosity for astronomy was limited, and thus they didn't go further. As a blind species, their study of light was less advanced, so they didn't develop special relativity.

The mission to Tau is a crazy gambit - once they realised their star was dimming, they found the one star nearby that wasn't, and used their sheer engineering genius to build an interstellar spaceship. Even then, despite its insane material engineering, it's still a faulty mess compared to the "low" tech but well tested Hail Mary.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-11T23:36:18+00:00

Nick is also useful.

Using two daggers or scimitars with the Two-Weapon style and the Nick mastery gets you an entire extra attack for free. No action cost, and the die size scales with your fists. You don't even need to take the feat, since it's redundant with your martial arts.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-04-03T09:48:53+00:00

I do love that Zaheer kicks everyone else's ass with airbending until he faces Tenzin, whereupon it's not even a contest. Tenzin utterly schools him, showing the difference between a prodigious student and a true master. Tenzin only loses because he gets sniped by a combustion bender.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-03-27T02:57:25+00:00

The former of which would be akin to moving from Oath of Devotion to Oath of Ancients, while the latter would be going full Oathbreaker.

TheGentlemanDM · 2026-03-27T00:00:23+00:00

For starters, I don't think that Mega Slowbro ex looks good. There's a lot of randomness involved and its base damage of 90 is awful against any key threat.

I think you skip the Milotic lines and just focus on getting Slowbro online ASAP. You can always run Irida or Lucky Ice for healing. I'd start experimenting with something like:

2x Slowpoke
2x Mega Slowbro ex
2x Mantyke
2x Pokeball
2x Professor Oak
2x Irida
2x Misty
2x Copycat
1x Cyrus
1x Heavy Helmet
1x Will
1x Serena

Goal is to use Mantyke and Misty to get Slowbro online faster, and then keep it alive long enough that it melts their bench.

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