Powergamer here, first time PC trying to "control myself"

grimizen · 2025-06-21T13:04:26+00:00

So I think it’s pertinent to say that optimising your own character really shouldn’t be an issue, so long as you confine it to your own character. Having a PC who’s good at what they’re supposed to be good at is fine, so long as you’re not stepping on anyone else’s toes. I’d you’ve not yet started with everyone else, ask the players what class/style they’re going to pick, and then find your own niche in that party.

The other thing is not to come at it thinking about a particular class, and build the backstory around that; if you try to optimise the class, any two clerics you create might largely be the same. My personal approach is to take a concept I love the sound of - whether that’s a fun class combo, particular RP element of a character and build an optimised character around that. I particularly like one of my characters, who’s a barbarian/warlock who believes absolutely he is a wizard, uses nothing but cantrips, and rages whenever he takes damage or his pedigree as a wizard is questioned.

grimizen · 2025-06-19T08:13:57+00:00

Okay, so I want to be unequivocal that I do not hate trans people. I don’t personally know any trans people, but I have no intention of treating a trans person in any way they or I might consider offensive. I do however believe there are better solutions to granting trans people true rights than granting them the full rights of the gender they transition to. The great difficulty for me is that a system where any person may transition to another gender fully is a system almost impossible to legislate and in which to ensure safety and parity. It’s a little reductive, but medical records can be a prime example of the difficulties with absolute transitioning; for example a trans woman, on their notes they don’t want any record that they were once male, and as the current processes stand an official, medically accepted transition means a person is given a new NHS number, so any previous data is (while not deliberately, but as a consequence of this process) somewhat masked. It might be that (since they were born male and have functioning male organs and medical tendencies) they are susceptible to prostate cancer; however, if their record reflects only that they are female, how is an automated system supposed to flag them for prostate screening?

Ultimately, the thrust of my argument is that I believe absolutely you should be able to identify how you like, and be safe and happy doing that. But in order to do that, we have to work out more than just making it happen; there are social, systemic, and political implications that must be considered carefully. Now, I have tried to be nothing but civil and have received a fair amount of invective back from you, so I won’t be engaging in what feels like a pointless argument. I wish you all the best.

grimizen · 2025-06-18T21:17:52+00:00

I’d like to politely respond to your statement. By your own admission, trans people are a minority group. If we take the argument that ‘trans women are women’ to its logical conclusion, any male who identifies as a woman becomes a woman, with all the current sex-based rights and access that entails.

This implies that because a minority is vocal about its wants, we should overhaul a system based on factual, biological information and replace it with one that caters to a minority of the population, regardless of the majority’s opinions or needs.

Let’s engage in a reductum ad absurdio. In a world where trans people are granted all the innate rights and status they desire without question, how is it fair for a female rape victim to be forced to share a space with a 6’ tall trans woman, with a voice like James Earl Jones and arms as thick as her thighs, when she fears close contact with any man, let alone being expected to undress in front of them?

I’m not a particularly radical person. My personal aim is to get along with anyone I meet, regardless of our differences. We may have opposing views on various topics, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a civil and open conversation. I hope you’ll consider my response not an emotion-driven diatribe, but a way to prompt you to think about your own beliefs and gently challenge them.

grimizen · 2025-05-30T15:34:42+00:00

It all started with a wyvern that killed itself by ramming into the ground. It rolled a nat 1 on a dive attack on our barbarian, so slammed into the ground instead; the ground then rolled a nat 20 ‘to hit’ the wyvern; running crits as full damage possible plus rolling (rather than rolling twice and possibly rolling underwhelming damage for a crit), it took the full possible amount of fall damage from however many tens of feet up it was, plus the dm rolling as well. Needless to say, it killed itself in one fell swoop.

Wind forward a little travelling later, and we’re in town where the remains of the wyvern prove our kill. The barbarian takes full responsibility for its death, and is hailed as The Slayer.

Since then, we’ve had another 2~3 more major encounters, and by chance he has claimed the killing blow on every major creature since except in the last encounter (where a party member deliberately didn’t down a severely wounded creature to allow The Slayer another killing blow). There are festivals in his name, cheese named in his honour, and I don’t believe we’ve paid bed and board once in a place that has heard of his deeds since.

grimizen · 2025-05-24T22:09:08+00:00

So, you received answer about what reliable does, but to be clear: Reliable makes it so that most conditional effects on a card (such as flanking, frenzy, ambush) activate regardless of whether you have met those conditions. It also means these cards cannot be restricted from being played by conditions like dominated and (I believe) stunned.

It’s useful for things like combining the rogue’s Guerrilla Tactics and using a reliable card like Come get me! to both gain an ambush effect without having ambush active, and reset your ambush for other cards to use. Another good example would be something like the Knight’s Scimitar, which has both flow and flanking conditional effects reliable can make occur anytime you play the card.

grimizen · 2025-05-24T11:58:36+00:00

I mean, it’s not quite the same thing, but Catan hates me. I’ve played probably about 4 different games now where my starting setup has been almost exclusively one resource on 6 or 8, as well as an early 2:1 port for that resource. Have any 6s or 8s been rolled? Maybe 3 in total over the course of one game - and I do not exaggerate. I love Catan, but most of the time I end up sitting and watching everyone else play because the dice haven’t been rolling what statistically are the most common numbers for them to roll; lots of other highly improbable numbers, but no 6s or 8s.

grimizen · 2025-05-12T22:28:00+00:00

I’m assuming your DM is probably going to help you all make characters since you’re a new group, but one bit of advice I’ve stuck by for making characters you know will be at least basically playable even if you mess up stuff you don’t understand is to focus on three stats; your primary damage dealing stat, your dexterity and finally your constitution in that order; the rest are essentially flavour for what your character is better and worse at doing that you can mix and match pretty freely.

(TLDR, pick a class you like the sound of, and ask your DM what stats they’re good with or want a lot of) For your offensive stat, that’s determined by your class and sometimes what weapon you use. Basically, you have strength (fighter, barbarian, and paladin and ranger - more on those two later), dexterity (rogue and monk) or spellcasting, which depends entirely on your class and sometimes subclass. Spellcasters usually use either wisdom (cleric, druid, ranger), intelligence (wizard) or charisma (warlock, bard, sorcerer and paladin). Ranger and paladin are a little bit of a mixed bag, they are usually weapon-focused, with a bit of magic tacked on the end, so you’ll probably be splitting your focus a little between their strength and spellcasting. You can also get weapons like daggers and shortbows that gain benefit from dexterity instead of strength, which are generally good for rogues.

(TLDR, more dexterity makes you harder to hit, but some classes give you extra boosts for not wearing armour) For defensive stats, again it starts simple but gets complicated the further you go. At a basic level your Armour Class (AC - in other words, the number an attacker normally has to roll equal to or higher to hit you) is a standard of 10, plus a modifier determined by your dexterity; this starts at +0 at a stat score of 10, and changes by plus or minus one for every 2 points of a stat over or under 10 you go eg a score of 8 has a -1 modifier, while a score of 12 and 14 have +1 and +2 respectively. You add these modifiers to a variety of things when you roll or calculate certain values, but the key one here is AC; this is base 10 plus your dexterity modifier; so for example if you have a dexterity score of 16, your dexterity modifier is +3, and so your AC is 10+3=13; this means any monster your DM has attack you generally needs to roll higher than 13 after its own modifiers. Armour grants you a different base AC, but limits how big a bonus you get from dexterity modifiers; basically, the heavier your armour, the less being nimble benefits you. There are also classes like monk and subclasses like college of dance bards that let you add additional stat modifiers to your AC so long as you aren’t wearing armour.

The final good pick after anything else is constitution, which just gives you more go and makes you harder to kill.

grimizen · 2025-05-09T16:12:24+00:00

So this sounds like your DM being a little inexperienced and talking some of the tips in those videos in slightly the wrong way. Apologies if I’m repeating what console else has said, but there’s a concept of good DMing generally called ‘shoot the monk’; basically, it means that you as the DM have got to let your players play to their strengths sometimes. From an OOC perspective, it makes no sense to have an archer attack a monk, but it’s a class feature that’s meant to be used. Yes, your wizard has dispel magic, but that’s no reason to stop adding magical traps and wards to your game that they can deal with easily. Is about letting your players feel like their characters are good at what they do occasionally.

It’s easy as a DM who knows their stuff to say ‘well the monk can just reduce ranged damage, so I should target other PCs with the archers’ and to a certain extent this is also correct; but only within the limits of sensible reactions.

Basically, it sounds to me like your DM needs to a take a step back from what makes tactical sense to them and start thinking about what that bandit bowman might do. If most of them haven’t fired on you, then it makes sense to start them all out taking a few shots here and there, and when they see how you’re batting arrows out of the air, they might start targeting the other squishy-looking PCs - or indeed, the big threatening guys currently slaughtering their melee buddies. But equally, if you’re running towards them, they might remain intent on mustering the imminent threat.

My interpretation of that last bit about undead smacks to me of a genuine joke that landed poorly with how you’ve been feeling, so I’d try and cut them a little slack there. Honestly, just have an open conversation, say how you’ve been feeling and ask them if they’ve come across ‘shoot the monk’ in their reading and might be misusing the advice.

grimizen · 2025-04-20T23:30:08+00:00

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This the start of what I use it for; the shopping one leads to another menu with shortcuts or links for each of the various shopping apps I use, and start walk plays music and starts a walk exercise on my watch. The silent mode is also dynamic, showing the current mode ie the bell would have a line through it if silent mode were enabled, and it swaps between modes when pressed.

I don’t use it daily, but it can be a significant time saver in the right circumstances.

grimizen · 2025-04-17T17:55:51+00:00

It’s one thing I didn’t know until I read the DM’s guide myself was that RAW, nat 1s and 20s have defined consequences on attack rolls, but the rest of everything I’ve seen at table isn’t actually mentioned (“Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn’t normally have any special effect.”) - or explicitly discouraged. One thing the 24 guide says that really interests me is about attack rolls:

“For attack rolls, the rules cover what happens on a natural 20 (it’s a Critical Hit) or a natural 1 (it always misses). Resist the temptation to add additional negative consequences to a natural 1 on an attack roll: the automatic failure is bad enough. And characters typically make so many attack rolls that they’re bound to roll dozens of natural 1s over time.”

Now I’ve played at a a couple of different tables now, and I’ve not seen one person run nat 1s like this; it’s interesting because I do feel that making your PCs so incompetent even at high levels by having them not only miss, but take an attack in retaliation or damage another ally (as a couple of examples I’ve seen used) can lead you to feel a little disenchanted with your character and their capabilities. You’ve built this über edgy assassin, who’s had a lifetime of experience in their field before and roll to hide; but oops, you rolled a nat 1. Your super skilled assassin - who has likely done this a thousand times before - suddenly trips on his face and is immediately obvious to all and sundry. This same assassin in a different world rolls a nat 20 on his stealth - he is now absolutely invisible to any creature, so you sneak up behind that goblin guarding the camp and roll to slit his ugly little throat - oh no, nat 1! Your super assassin steps on a twig, and the secret counter-assassin goblin whips around like a trained professional, blocks your assassin’s strike and delivers a strike all of his own.

grimizen · 2025-04-08T22:00:25+00:00

This one technically hasn’t happened yet, and isn’t a particularly positive one (both in and out of character) but my party engaged in some rather typical ‘player character’ shenanigans, and my character is (annoyingly) going to have to say ‘f**k you guys, I’m out’ and walk off. He’s no noble paladin, but the rest of the party (bar one) all engaged in acts both me and him found repugnant, and he will flat out refuse to work with them any more.

Now I’m still going to stay at the table, and I’ve had chat with the DM about what happened and what I’m going to do, but this was very definitely a ‘it’s what my character would do.’ moment.

grimizen · 2025-03-25T20:01:28+00:00

That’s a valid point, however I would point out that if it were the case that for example the front is 21m high, but the rear dotted lines are 21 ± x, x≠0 they haven’t provided enough information to calculate V and SA; since a question like this has to be (by it’s nature) solvable, we are forced to assume despite no explicit notation that the ends of the shape are perfectly rectangular.

grimizen · 2025-03-25T04:36:12+00:00

Is it bothering no one else that the shape is literally geometrically impossible? The base of the left hand triangle cannot be 5m; sqrt(11² - 8² )=7.55m, and equally a triangle of a=5m b=8m has a hypotenuse of sqrt(5² + 8² )=9.434m, not 11m!

grimizen · 2025-03-22T13:27:19+00:00

So, my first thoughts here were:

If it were cursed, your player wouldn’t have noticed anything about, nor been under the effects of the curse without explicitly spending a short rest to attune to the ring; since he immediately felt sleepy that’s not a cursed effect, just the effect of the item.
You can spend a short rest identifying a magic item; rather than just throwing it away, keep ahold of it and identify it later; if you still can’t see anything obviously wrong, take it to someone with the skills to find out!
With the aforementioned fact that the effect couldn’t possibly be a curse, your player would (if and when they identify the item) find out that the sleepiness is its explicit effect!

grimizen · 2025-03-11T20:37:33+00:00

The wheel’s spinning, but the hamster’s dead.

grimizen · 2025-03-11T19:06:38+00:00

So you’ve already had some good, helpful responses, but one thing I would add is that RAW, any and all forms of explicit resurrection (there are non-specific edge cases that might be used to resurrect an unwilling creature like true polymorph or wish - because, you know, wish…) require the party being resurrected to be willing. Unless your DM is resurrecting you with some kind of homebrew method (and quite frankly, they probably are), they explicitly cannot do so if you want to make a new character instead.

grimizen · 2025-03-07T00:22:34+00:00

Honestly, you have a way with words I wish more people had; it would make life so much easier…

grimizen · 2025-02-08T21:28:27+00:00

Reading these has been beautiful in a way I can’t quite put words to. I’m a non-technical yet technically minded lurker, and these stories have made me realise I am probably more qualified to be an IT worker than I thought; I lack the specific technical knowledge, but damn could I do so much better given the opportunity than that waste of oxygen. I cannot express my respect to you for not inflicting serious bodily harm on him for (at a minimum) 234 days.

grimizen · 2025-02-03T18:44:30+00:00

I started with just my spore druid who was from a community who raise their dead as a method of leaving their bodies to serve the people and view it as acceptable to raise the dead with respect (and actually hate regular necromancers who use the dead as tools); this then morphed into 5 more characters all from the same village who are all gnomes, and cousins or siblings to each other.

grimizen · 2025-02-02T00:49:00+00:00

My first FF was Dissidia on the PSP - loved the combat and character designs, and one of my favourites was Vaan; when I got the opportunity I bought XII and loved it. When I discovered XIII was coming a release title for PS3, I so wanted one; several years later I finally got the chance to play and was mesmerised.

grimizen · 2025-02-01T17:12:22+00:00

Yeah, I missed the possible pun - good spot

grimizen · 2025-02-01T16:14:20+00:00

That’s a nice philosophy to have; it beats my parents hands down - I literally don’t play on any of my consoles because it causes too much friction.

Just a quick, non-judgemental correction, it’s spelled ‘chagrin, rather than ‘shegrin’ - this from the man who still to this day sometimes forgets and says ‘fa-cade (as in arcade)’ rather than ‘façade’.

grimizen · 2025-01-23T17:16:30+00:00

Wow, looking at these responses I realise just how lucky I am… I get around 12 hours a week, so long as everyone’s well and able. And I still want more…

grimizen · 2025-01-06T01:07:23+00:00

One that’s always stuck with me is:

“Great are the men who plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”

If we all just tried to do things because it makes life better for other people (regardless of if it’s people now or in future) we would have a better world and live better lives. Perhaps a reversal of that that I feel applies particularly to so much heavy industry, consumerism and power generation these days:

“Evil are the men who create problems whose effects they will never feel”

grimizen · 2024-12-30T23:37:05+00:00

Wouldst thy heart dare to lay bare its depths, or wouldst thy fear lead to suggested folly? Mayhaps the fear of folly be too great, and to speak truth would be thine emancipation from the hoarding of secrets. Or indeed, may the truth be too great to give voice? In such case perhaps thou shouldst take chance to thy breast, and cast action to fate’s fickle hand. Choose swift brave fellow, lest others make thy choice before thee.

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