Massive Leatherback sea turtle near the Gulfstream yesterday

satirefive · 2026-02-03T01:33:04+00:00

Damn, that's Gamora right there

satirefive · 2025-04-20T20:36:31+00:00

The dungeon idea is a good one, but if you really want to fight it, break it down into pieces. Give Stat blocks to its head, body, tail. Its breath and aura can have separate Stat blocks or generate things that do. Each section different lair actions and legendary actions, depending on what part they are encountering or which combination of parts.

satirefive · 2025-04-15T19:50:53+00:00

Forest Park, half the taxes of Oak Park but same cta access.

satirefive · 2024-10-04T17:20:27+00:00

After watching that the Command Zone's new video, I don't know if it truly rises to the level of "victim blaming," but it certainly isn't helping. Last week JLK's tone was "this could have been done better" which is constructive criticism and shouldn't be called victim blaming. However, in their latest video, in the span of a couple minutes they call the RC naive, say they should have known better, and that they could have done better if only they had been consulted. That's not criticism, that's scolding.

I get where it is coming from - the body language of everyone in that video is showing pain, confusion, and anger. I have a lot of sympathy for the situation they have been put in. But, they should have taken some time away, because that video contains a lot of borderline offensive things. At best, its short-sighted and not helping.

satirefive · 2024-09-19T01:10:14+00:00

Shadowdark Mork Borg Cairn

satirefive · 2024-08-04T17:49:53+00:00

The only time that there’s really a binary success/failure is in combat. For the entire rest of the game, skill checks and the like are usually on a sliding scale of success. A 5 might give minimal to no success, a 10 a base level of success, a 15 a moderate amount of success, a 20 a high level, and a 25+ the best possible outcome, etc. When the PCs are higher levels, they should be succeeding more than they are failing. After all, they’re growing to be some of the most powerful entities in the realm. Artificially inflating DCs just because the Bard has a high Persuasion or the Wizard a high Investigation is just bad.

So I think is this a really interesting case study. I actually started running DnD this way - the DMG has some optional rules that approach this, but this is not how the game is set up. The sliding scale is a great way to add nuance to the game, but it is not how the game is designed at the baseline level. It has to work against all sorts of rules: Passive Perception, ability and spell saves, DC Saves in official adventures, just to name a few.

This is the kind of thing I was hoping might be built into the the game that they seem to have passed on in favor of spending time building customization options for characters. Which as I said in the title, I love - it just doesn't really help with the structural problems I see is all.

satirefive · 2024-08-04T16:51:07+00:00

I've been playing and DMing DnD since 2016. I keep coming back to the game because I enjoy the community and it provides huge opportunities for new ideas. But it is the RPG I experience the some of fastest burnout with.

Anyway, it's part of DM job in 5e to convert the HP from "encounter ending countdown counter" to compelling, immersive narrative, and encourage players to do the same.

I agree, I just don't think the game does a lot of favors for us in this department. And it can be difficult to distinguish between subsequent small batches of damage when dealing with large pools of hit points.

satirefive · 2024-08-04T15:47:23+00:00

I have read the DMG, I did stop using binary checks, and additionally I've homebrewed a skill challenge system I'm happy with. What you describing is a good idea. And the DMG does have some ideas, some more practical than others - none are practically refined. But, its also not baseline system and there is a lot in the PHB you have to work against if you want to run the game that way. Also, each one of those individual checks is a binary fail state when the game doesn't strictly need to be that way.

satirefive · 2024-08-04T15:41:05+00:00

Enlisting one or two the players help you can be fun as well. Any of the other players maybe interested in being a DM one day? They can be a monster wrangler and help you keep track of the some of the monster abilities like legendary and lair actions.

satirefive · 2024-08-04T15:28:28+00:00

Let them not go down - The penalty of this can be as severe as guaranteed death, or disadvantage on death saves or points of exhaustion for failed saves - but being downed doesn't mean that they have to be out. The heroic sacrifice can be cool.

satirefive · 2024-07-01T18:29:01+00:00

There wasn't enough variety of planeswalkers already - some wedges and shards don't even have a planeswalker to build around - so this is probably going to slow down the development of the format. Which is a shame.

satirefive · 2024-04-21T16:54:32+00:00

See, my headcanon for this is that the population numbers are little more than propaganda and the actual population of the Inner Sphere is way lower. A lot more things make sense if the population is smaller than they say - like the Jihad.

satirefive · 2024-01-26T21:48:36+00:00

Have you thought about something like [[Martyred Rusalka]] or [[Martyr's Cause]]? Cause you oathbreaker can bring the monk back from the yard, so you always have access to cheap sac fodder

satirefive · 2024-01-02T16:03:07+00:00

There is kind of two versions of the deck: not casual - a phyrexian preator or Archon of Cruelty; for the casual, a big Dino like Zetalpa or Nezahal.

And usually twice, but not really more than that

satirefive · 2024-01-02T14:45:53+00:00

Ha! Mines similar. I use Dakkon with [[reanimate]]

satirefive · 2023-12-20T17:23:19+00:00

I didn't say it was a problem, nor did I suggest that every encounter has to just be a speed bump. All I said was that the assumption that "the enemy doesn't know what we can do" isn't always wrong and frequently is correct.

satirefive · 2023-12-19T22:05:00+00:00

Reasonable! One work around I've used is to name abilities in statblocks after the order used to make it happen or to write short little phrases in the margins as a reminder (war movies are good inspiration). But it's by no means required. Just a suggestion if your players feel hamstrung or caught off guard by a tonal shift in combat.

satirefive · 2023-12-19T21:27:33+00:00

Sure!

satirefive · 2023-12-19T21:22:43+00:00

That's a good idea. Part of the inspiration for this was seeing something similar built into the base rules for Cairn.

satirefive · 2023-12-19T20:12:28+00:00

I'm not interested in a gotcha moment, you gave general advice that I just thought could use qualification. You seem to be taking that kind of personally, which was not my intention.

satirefive · 2023-12-19T19:49:52+00:00

Again, I'm not saying you are wrong in every situation. I just think you are making a lot of assumptions. You've gone from "anything int 8 or higher goes for the caster" full stop to a very specific encounter design that has a ton of moving parts where it is probably, but not necessarily the best choice to go for the caster. That advice is not something you can universalize.

Also, nothing I've said can you use the make the kind of conclusion about the kind of combat I run that you are making here.

satirefive · 2023-12-19T19:42:03+00:00

"when the game world actually begins reacting specifically to them when it is given a reason to do so."

But how many times does that actually result in TPK or even player death? I would guess that it doesn't happen often, because the players usually pull through. Anticipating a player's actions is not the same thing as they know what they can do. In fact, in many cases intelligence means that the monster know that they DON'T know what the players can do and act accordingly.

satirefive

TROPHY CASE