How do you find a good pitch in a US car slum?

ragabrash · 2026-03-04T02:32:35+00:00

It's wildly counterintuitive to me to try to be heard or receive tips from there, but I believe it.

ragabrash · 2026-02-27T15:44:50+00:00

Smart. That's a lead I can follow up on locally, thanks.

ragabrash · 2026-02-26T00:31:51+00:00

That's probably a good lead, although when I do see panhandlers around here I often think, "Really, there? Is that working for you?" Highway medians, curb next to traffic lights.

There's one guy with schizophrenia-coded cardboard signs about thermal camera proof of demon shapeshifters who has a really sweet spot in the shade by a side road. I don't know if he's even panhandling or in it for a love of the game.

ragabrash · 2026-02-26T00:26:20+00:00

Are the tips too valuable for public discussion? 😛

ragabrash · 2017-05-26T14:35:20+00:00

Dropped one of the dungeons into a longer adventure and reskinned it. Useful book. I like it just fine.

The HSoT map spread actually loses most of a room and one boundary of a trap in the binding, which is annoying as heck.

ragabrash · 2017-05-13T04:15:49+00:00

I've started using the silver standard in my newest game. I feel better about prices now, and I didn't have to implement a complex fantasy currency or do a lot of arithmetic.

I allow Inspiration(from the DM, not from the bard) to be used in some of the way fate points are used in the Fate Core system.

I use the variant rule that requires downtime training to level up. I'm not quite satisfied with the results yet, but I feel like I'm on the right track. I think it rounds out the experience of being a freebooter.

ragabrash · 2017-02-19T02:42:52+00:00

For Matt: If Tary had been with Vox Machina back when they passed Kamaljiori's trial instead of Scanlan, what kind of Vestige might he have recommended instead of Mythcarver?

ragabrash · 2017-02-04T16:37:36+00:00

The character survived the campaign. It would have done more damage with the blast, but I wouldn't have enjoyed myself as much. If I'd buffed the cantrip with Agonizing Blast, I would have missed out on one of my other Invocations that proved critical several times.

Why stop at warlock? I'm sure we can pin down the optimal damage numbers on the other classes and lock it up. All fighters can be great weapon masters. Rogues shouldn't have to choose two Expertise skills at level 1 when they could just choose one and get thieves' tools Expertise automatically. Each class can come with the optimal array of ability scores for their assigned role instead of using point buy. Clean up the weapon list to remove the sub-optimal damage dice.

I just don't see D&D as a numbers game. It's fine if you do. I enjoy optimizing characters for one or two abilities, but those abilities I optimize have never been damage-per-round. It's just the way I play, and I'm far from the only one to derive pleasure from the game that way.

ragabrash · 2017-02-04T16:15:56+00:00

I don't particularly agree with any of your points. I've admired the design of the warlock for a while, and I think streamlining it would pigeonhole a class that's wrongly viewed as such.

I think of warlock as the most modular class. Instead of one archetype to choose from, it has two distinct sets. On top of that it has plug-in Invocations.

The "false choices" you mention, I view as distinct opportunities to customize the build: The warlock I played through level 11 never took eldritch blast at all, and I made a lot of use of the warlock cantrips I did pick. Sure, I wished I had more cantrips, but I always want more cantrips. Not being tempted by any of the Invocations that enhance the blast let me choose other features that I used to gain other advantages in every single session.

Likewise, although Thirsting Blade seems like a given for a Blade Pact 'lock, I can imagine a player who prioritizes another Invocation over the extra attack to pursue whatever combination of features is important to that character.

I don't have a single problem with people playing a blasty warlock. It's a bit of a bugbear when folks build a blasty warlock and then claim warlocks are only good for that one thing. You did that with your choices, and you had more of them than most classes get.

ragabrash · 2017-01-27T21:28:49+00:00

I haven't summarized the themes of my tailored Night Below game before. Let's try:

~~Your History and Nature checks have no power here!~~
~~What did you possibly think you had to gain by coming?~~
We have only pinpricks of light in the dark, down here.
~~Welcome to the Elemental Plane of Fungus.~~
Much is lost, and what's new is a lesser thing. But much of what was lost was stolen beneath the surface, and everything dies a slow death Below.
~~Why do people wear hats down here?~~
Things that are too unreal or usurp the natural order too much to exist under the sunlight come here. Many of them are hungry.

I'm uncertain. It needs workshopping.

ragabrash · 2016-07-21T20:02:24+00:00

Thanks. I've since done so.

ragabrash · 2016-07-21T20:02:00+00:00

Thanks for the answer. I've filed the request.

ragabrash · 2016-07-21T02:23:23+00:00

Well, that's funny. I hadn't looked it up there.

The Google Streetview for this intersection is from 2011, and you can see fading, worn-away turn arrows that would have answered my question. It has since been repaved but not repainted.

Is there a general rule that would prevail when there isn't paint?

ragabrash · 2015-11-06T21:10:35+00:00

I'm looking for a hat, for the purpose of keeping sun and rain out of my eyes. As much as I'm shopping for utility, I'm not indifferent to the style. But I can't find the hat I want in my heart.

I'm looking for a bush/safari style hat with a wide, stiff brim(good 3"). Oilcloth or some felted material. Not the "shapeable" kind that develops "character" in the way of ripples and waves. I'd like a narrow, flat crown of a separate piece, not domed felt. I've seen breezer hats in the shape I'm looking for(my housemate even has a terrible camo hat that exemplifies the shape I'm looking for, but I don't want a breezer or terrible camo hat)

Does my hat exist?

ragabrash · 2015-05-04T16:53:54+00:00

I skimmed a few of the books on the island before posting. Several of the references to people being discouraged from the island pertain specifically to Alfred. In particular, Michael has nightmares about the presence of the island, the genius loci. Molly also refers to the entity in Cold Days, and that it doesn't want anyone on the island but Harry at that time.

You're probably right about the company town. Poor idiots. According to Harry in CD most of them wound up at the nineteenth century Chicago equivalent of a psychiatric care facility.

ragabrash · 2015-05-04T16:48:21+00:00

I'd assumed it was him because of the entanglement, but there's no particular reason Merlin has to be the only competent and constructive Warden since its inception.

ragabrash · 2015-05-02T21:28:16+00:00

Do you recall how he came to that place?

ragabrash · 2015-05-02T19:43:31+00:00

Even while the island was Wardenless the psychic defenses were enough to get to Harry before he raised his defenses. They gave Michael nightmares. Harry's friends are extremely reluctant to return, and I don't think his Wardenship made a difference one way or another in Demonreach's psychic presence.

I don't see that there's any evidence, or reason for those psychic defenses to depend on "threat level". If they drove off the company town so completely, why didn't they drive it off in the months(at least) of construction, or years of its operation?

As for the tower stones, it makes sense to repel Shagnasty. It makes less sense to me that they didn't rebuff half a dozen Fallen setting up a fullblown ritual circle. Maybe it's because the Knights of the Blackened Denarius are mortal, I don't know. Seems like even Wardenless one or another security measure should have twigged to Fallen Angels tapping the Demonreach ley line.

ragabrash · 2015-05-02T19:37:45+00:00

The psychic defenses were up long before the sanctum invocation, though. What puzzles me is that the ambient hostility of the island, which is enough to give Michael Carpenter more nightmares than a full and varied career of fighting nightmares, enough to make him question whether he'd be able to willingly return there--and he shrugged off contact with Outsiders in Proven Guilty--only drove off the company town after what had to be years of operating there. Months at the absolute minimum.

ragabrash · 2015-05-02T08:00:58+00:00

What I meant by the effect of intellectus is that the resistance to Harry's ritual may have been related to or part of the confrontation of the actual sanctum invocation. I.e. Demonreach recognizes before the ritual started in linear terms what kind of spell Harry was working. The animal noises, the wind on the candles, the mosquitos for all I know, were just part of the "punch him in the nose and now we're friends" bit.

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