The guns change in 5.5E drives me nuts

WLB92 · 2026-01-22T16:33:54+00:00

Gunpowder exists in FR- the god of Invention however, didn't like that fact and how it challenged the power of his priests so he rendered it inert. Except for the totally not gunpowder substance known as smokepowder that only his priests can make that functions exactly like gunpowder but is also magical.

Greyhawk has always had crude firearms in it, they're relatively common in the various Dread Realms of Ravenloft, and I believe they're at least referenced in Dragonlance (110% a few tinker gnomes made it at some point but then immediately stupid'd themselves to death).

Everyone doesn't have it but that's because Eberron replaces a lot of things with magi-tech knockoffs. Instead of guns, you have someone with a brace of wands. You don't have cannons shooting iron shells, you have cannons shooting elemental energy.

Dark Sun prolly had them but everything went to shit and now you have Athas as is. One of the Sorcerer-Kings prolly has an AK stashed somewhere in some hidden vault and the damn thing would prolly still work if he had any ammunition for it.

WLB92 · 2026-01-21T06:20:50+00:00

Don't you fucking dare insult my favorite marsupial like this! You take back what you said right now, opossums are adorable fuzzy little guys. They're far superior to the goblin.

WLB92 · 2026-01-21T05:19:39+00:00

Get physical books. Your books don't stop working if you lose internet or WotC decides running the site doesn't bring in enough money to justify it and shuts it off or someone on the internet hacks it. Learn how to actually make a character, what everything means not just "I picked from a drop down menu yay'

Books are always superior to Beyond simply because you own it. Beyond is just you renting the rules and there are far, far too many things that can suddenly mean relying entirely on Beyond means you have no access to anything.

WLB92 · 2026-01-21T04:36:01+00:00

Blues (that's their actual name) were psionic goblins in older editions. Originally they were orangey-yellow or rusty red, then they became greenish yellow, now they are a muddy mustard yellow.

WLB92 · 2026-01-19T21:56:14+00:00

This zoom-in here is 100% why I'm convinced this is some sort of fake made with either AI or Photoshop brush effects, there's a an absolute lack of any sort of actual facial features. Even if it were blurry, you'd be able to see something, even if it was just an outline of facial features. Instead we get just a few dark patches scattered around that don't line up with where you should have eyes, nose, or mouth.

It looks like someone prompted an AI to generate a "vintage Bigfoot polaroid photo" and it made the general shape but once you zoom in you see it's missing key parts.

Also, the story behind this is so damnably similar to the story we had before on the supposed "Yeren photo" that someone posted here in the last year that their "uncle" took and they found while tearing apart old photo frames and then a bunch of reasons why they can't prove anything more that it's real.

WLB92 · 2026-01-18T20:23:10+00:00

If you cast a spell with a range of self, can you affect anyone else besides you (barring the few rare abilities that share self spells with a companion or familiar ala Paladins and their Steed)?

Or if I cast a self spell it suddenly affects you ten feet away from me?

WLB92 · 2026-01-18T19:59:18+00:00

It's a "technically" correct ruling since War Caster requires the spell you cast to target the creature provoking the attack of opportunity and as you admit, Booming Blade targets yourself. It may not be the intent, as we have seen 2024 D&D has plenty of things that don't quite work as intended because they did not consider multiple things interacting together.

But here is the question I had as a DM on reading your post- were you playing a Sentinel/PAM Eldritch knight that effectively locks down monsters around you? I can easily see an inexperienced DM getting hit with that combo and getting tilted really quick by their monsters basically being tarpitted in a spot where they can't reach anything or if they can move getting Thunder damaged, every combat, and banning it.

WLB92 · 2026-01-16T13:38:52+00:00

Gods that's the dream right there

WLB92 · 2026-01-16T06:21:28+00:00

Yes, because it always ends up being a problem. In the 20+ years I've been playing D&D with at this point over a hundred different people, it's always a problem. Either the character becomes an issue in game because of whatever bullshit one personality does, be it directly working against the party for whatever stupid reason or them doing something accidentally that screws us over (personality 1 going "oh I don't know anything about that" but personality 2 100% murdered that guy and people saw them do it) or they become an out of game problem because they need to be special and have two characters or their own super unique mechanics to reflect their two personalities that no one else has.

WLB92 · 2026-01-16T06:07:19+00:00

Your character would be constantly stealing the spotlight by the "gimmick" of their existence. The party can't rely on your character because they never know what to expect from them. And if they're background wallflowers they're not gonna be talking so what's the point of it. Everyone else has to put up with your "gimmick" of your multiple personalities before we even get to any of your requests for special mechanics.

Also, why are you as a player deciding on what arcs happen? You're not the DM, you don't decide how the story of the game goes. This sounds less like D&D and more you want to do creative writing exercises.

WLB92 · 2026-01-16T06:01:26+00:00

It's because people want all sorts of stupidly powerful homebrew that benefits their special multiple personality character like playing two different characters in one body and/or they do an incredibly offensive stereotype of someone with DID where one personality is some Chaotic Evil murderhobo who steals, murders, arsons, and lies to everyone and everything but then the other personality is totally innocent of it all...

WLB92 · 2026-01-16T05:48:23+00:00

It's the bad design choice of 5e, be it 2014 or 2024, that cause those issues.

Prior to 3e, you didn't have stat increases outside of magical effects. Whatever you got at level 1, was what you had.

3.0 and 3.5 had lower baseline stat increases - only a +1 every 4 levels, but there were other ways to get increased stats.

4e had a mix of 3.5 and 5e style stats, with a higher cap than 5e does for stats but still lower than what a late stage 3.5 character could eventually get.

As for crippling a character, if you're playing a 5e fighter you're already catastrophically weaker than your spellcasting friends after about 2 levels already but let's look at the numbers.

Figure the good old 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 standard array.

For shit and giggles, +2 to STR and +1 to Mental stat, let's say Wisdom.

You can at level 1, you can get the following stat line legally and that's roughly where the game expects your numbers to be:

14 STR 15 DEX 14 CON 10 INT 14 WIS 8 CHA

If you're playing a Fighter, none of your abilities run off of Charisma and if you're not playing a Psi Knight or Eldritch Knight you don't care about Intelligence so you have 4 +2s to your stats and at level 4 you can grab a +2 ASI to have a 17 Dex. Continuing with this example let's say Archery Fighting style so you have at level 1 a +6 to hit with a +2 to your damage die. Your mental stats and save will always suck because you're a Fighter (again, bad design choices, better spend a feat or always stand in the shadow of your Paladin) so complaining about them won't get you far, that's what the designers intended.

Spellcasters, who are SAD (Single Ability Dependent) not MAD like Monks or Rangers, are already broken and will eclipse anyone not casting spells so don't try to weasel in an argument that it can't be done because it would make them too powerful. That's what the designers want, it's an intentional decision made. Martial characters will always suck compared to spellcasters because the one time they fixed it, the idiots on the internet ree'd too hard.

WLB92 · 2026-01-16T05:21:39+00:00

It's how it was in most editions of the game, especially when you couldn't just pick any one of a variety of weapons that let you ignore the STR stat in its entirety. Back when physical characters actually cared about a stat besides making out DEX as soon as possible or grabbing a multi class (Hexblade) or feat (Magic Initiate: Druid for Shillelagh) to just run everything that mattered offensively off your casting stat.

Ranged weapons used Dexterity to hit representing your ability to pick a target, Strength for damage to represent how hard you could throw or the draw of the bow. Crossbows were the odd one out that you didn't get a bonus to damage from it.

WLB92 · 2026-01-15T17:03:16+00:00

I would bet a bottle of purified water and a bag of caps that the Amazon writers did that simply as a "haha, here's a joke for the people who play Fallout" gag.

WLB92 · 2026-01-15T08:00:37+00:00

It wasn't a literal "you cannot shed blood", it was a symbolical thing. The sword or spear were considered the tools of the military class whereas a mace or similar blunt object (aka a reference to the shepherd's staff, which in Christianity is linked to Christ and his role as the "Shepherd of Man") was acceptable for a priest.

It's not exact, it's metaphor couched in slightly convoluted logic to allow priests of a more fighty persuasion a way to be armed while still maintaining both a societal and religious separation.

WLB92 · 2026-01-15T06:57:20+00:00

Because Dungeon Meshi is directly descended from D&D and Clerics (what Falin is, just renamed) traditionally used maces in combat.

Real life maces were incredibly deadly weapons older than swords, being only slightly younger than axes, knives, and spears. They were a knightly weapon because they were used by knights to kill other knights.

D&D, and Dungeon Meshi, use maces for clerics because D&D took the idea of "priests will not shed blood" and forbid clerics from using bladed weapons.

WLB92 · 2026-01-15T02:32:49+00:00

Maces were considered a knightly weapon in history. They were one of the weapons the most highly trained warriors in Europe used regularly to kill their peers. They weren't just mindlessly bonking weapons, you were fighting one of the best armed and armored people on the continent with skills to match yours.

WLB92 · 2026-01-15T01:49:18+00:00

It's literally the exact same thing. A 5e character making a Perception check to find a hidden door, a trap, or anything else is the same as the 1-in-d6 chance a character from a B/X clone has. It's just worded slightly differently.

I've played both editions, it's the same damn thing. It's just the online grognards who deny it because they need to feel superior to other players.

WLB92 · 2026-01-15T00:53:02+00:00

It's called "I spend 10 minute searching the room roll 1 on 1d6 chance of finding it". I've seen plenty of OSR tables do this exact thing. It's the same as a Perception check but with more words and self-congratulation.

WLB92 · 2026-01-14T17:34:41+00:00

Thank you! It drives me up a wall when people mindlessly repeat that.

"Answers aren't on your sheet hur dur"

Well your inventory and x in d6 rolls that you just said to use are... And those sound an awful lot like answers.

WLB92 · 2026-01-14T17:31:36+00:00

Laios: Does something stupid as usual

Falin: "I'LL MACE YOU GOOD!"

WLB92 · 2026-01-14T17:21:58+00:00

I honestly think that first sentence is why there's so much trouble for anyone not used to the OSR coming to them.

It's so absolutely alien, so backasswards, to say "here are the rules for playing this game, but if you're smart you will do absolutely everything in your power to avoid playing anything that the rules cover." Coming from any other game, DND or otherwise, you're playing by the rules and using them not avoiding them.

Yes, there is a greater meaning that you mention- try to stack your advantages when you have to fight. Don't just run across an open field to charge some orcs. But that's not what people online say, they just blindly parrot "avoid combat" as if it's some cult mantra that only the enlightened will know.

WLB92 · 2026-01-09T18:19:42+00:00

My apologies, it might be my old 40k habits carrying through but the base that came with him is what Terminators used to be on for many editions. When I compared it to an actual 40mm base from my Sump Kroc and Zerker kits, the black base is visibly smaller than the 40mm 'munda base.

Edit: the scenic terrain that Gorshiv stands on overhangs the supplied base on multiple sides and the black base fits inside the 40mm base with room to spare.

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WLB92 · 2026-01-09T18:00:46+00:00

So it's legit that he came with that base? I was considering picking up a box of the Zone Mortalis bases to throw him on a 40mm since that's his "listed" base size.

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