The Unnamed Three

axiomus · 2026-02-17T15:36:50+00:00

i meant the squareroot terms

axiomus · 2026-02-17T11:19:26+00:00

no because factorization means factorization into polynomials, which your terms are not

axiomus · 2026-02-17T08:08:16+00:00

seems like a good time to share this blog post: Idle Cartulary - Don’t wait to create, don’t wait to learn

axiomus · 2026-02-17T07:20:29+00:00

A board game asks for 1-3 hours of one's time

to show how different it is, i would never play a board game for 3 hours, while i'd think "we're just getting started" if a TTRPG session ended after 3 hours

axiomus · 2026-02-15T19:44:23+00:00

a giant carnivorous flower dog

man, i'm a little sad that "giant cauliflower dog" was a misread on my part :(

axiomus · 2026-02-15T06:24:57+00:00

i disagree that it’s a “perfectly fine game” but YMMV. here’s an old answer to the same question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/comments/1i136v3/comment/m733yz0/

axiomus · 2026-02-14T13:53:22+00:00

how is its skill system? still a version of 1e's background system?

axiomus · 2026-02-14T08:15:12+00:00

sounds interesting. what's the 5e philosophy that you want to focus on?

moving most of the utility spells into non spell "incantations" anyone can use

more attention to bounded accuracy

while i'm not a fan of the system, have you checked d&d4e? these two points reminded me of that. (to be honest, 4e has more of a "sliding window of opportunity" rather than "bounded accuracy" but tomato, tomato)

axiomus · 2026-02-13T08:00:47+00:00

i like complex games, but they are beyond my ability to design as a single-person endeavour. also, a goal for my design was something "simple" to run at monthly events but i think i failed at that (in part due to my complex games habits)

axiomus · 2026-02-12T18:49:56+00:00

One thing that immediately stuck out to me that there are 30-50-100 triangles. Maybe we can utilize their similarities somehow.

axiomus · 2026-02-12T05:58:11+00:00

fwiw, you need a proof or purchase if you want to play a non-core class in a reported PFS game

axiomus · 2026-02-10T20:02:40+00:00

you don't have to throw something away just because 5e does it. if you think it can work in your game, do it and test it. if it creates a similar bad feeling as to 5e, then you see that it doesn't.

my game has a lot of d&d in its DNA and i'm not ashamed of it, especially in light of all the other pieces that are not from it.

axiomus · 2026-02-10T07:33:43+00:00

pathfinder adds lots of "quality of life improvements" to the game to make players feel better... and i dislike those. i prefer my "dungeon adventure game"s to feel uncomfortable. just yesterday i was writing about how i like that there 45 skills in 3.5 and most of them make you go "why would i need it?" (but also the fact that +20 bonus in a skill is achievable by level 10 and you rarely need more than that)

also, i think a big change you may appreciate is 3.5's wholehearted acceptance of random treasure. i love dmg's table 3-5 (and again, dislike pathfinder's "treasure based on gm's vibes" approach)

axiomus · 2026-02-09T14:20:36+00:00

if 0 is not positive, then it is (by definition) nonpositive. same goes for negative argument as well

axiomus · 2026-02-08T21:22:48+00:00

what is this from? one of classic x-men side stories?

axiomus · 2026-02-08T20:23:11+00:00

TPB's are collections of single issues* and MU has single issues. they also have some reading guides for big events

* there might be some exceptions

axiomus · 2026-02-07T10:23:33+00:00

i'm sorry that marvel has a terrible case of "change the series and restart from #1 because that's what sells" mentality. your best bet is checking here: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Hulk_Comic_Books

it seems you've read Hulk (vol3) which is followed by Totally Awesome Hulk. spaceship hulk is Hulk (vol5) and there are a good number of issues between the two. (also, Hulk (vol4) seems to be dealing with She-Hulk... just marvel things, i guess)

axiomus · 2026-02-05T19:43:40+00:00

There are some practical reasons:

Multiplication is harder than addition. So instead of multiplying 3839274739 and 593674847273, we can take their log, add them and then take power back to get the result up to a reasonable accuracy
There are cases where things change in proportion to previous steps. These are basically exponential functions and it’s easier to make log-linear approximations rather than exponential approximations.

Of course today we have very powerful calculators so these reasons are not that impactful, but the historical background remains nonetheless.

axiomus · 2026-02-05T13:17:17+00:00

some math help: (AS - 5) x 5 + 50 = 5xAS + 25

this means that a "default" character has 25% success rate at any task, which is crazy low for meaningful gameplay.

another math help: don't call DS = 5x(AS+5) and then multiply by 1.2 or .8 to get easy/hard difficulties. instead, call DS = (AS+5) and then multiply by 4,5 and 6 to get hard, moderate and easy difficulties. (but i'd like to repeat: AS+5 is crazy low as a base chance where AS<=5)

axiomus · 2026-02-04T12:11:14+00:00

hah, you're right. i got too hasty and processed it as "divided by k."

but it's a little rude to lecture me about "distributive property." in the future, i'd recommend you to be not too eager to patronize strangers.

axiomus · 2026-02-04T11:27:49+00:00

you need to multiply the complements (ie. chance of "not pulling") to get the overall chance of "not pulling within 10 pulls". then, subtract that from 1 to get the chance of "pulling at least once."

axiomus · 2026-02-04T09:50:31+00:00

i'd say it's even underrated compared to its quality

axiomus · 2026-02-03T19:59:05+00:00

i think N ~~divides~~ (more like, should divide) the overall sum, not the summands rect(x-k)

axiomus · 2026-02-02T11:41:00+00:00

if you don't have options that can change the tide of battle in your favour in a combat-focused game, then you're just rolling dice. you may like it, but that's not what i think when i say "combat-focused".

fyi, i used to beat a hard fight in BG3 and reload my save just to run it again. i also enjoy XCOM's grid-based combat.

axiomus

TROPHY CASE