The Gaming Den

using darkness with devil's sight is considered an optimization -- and as people have mentioned it requires an action to cast a level 2 spell slot, the spell requires concentration, and the advantage generally will only impact the warlock as being able to see in magical darkness is a power that's ot...

at the risk of going far afield of the topic at hand, or even the topic in general, or even the forum itself, anarcho-communism or just anarcho-* has more interpretations than flag colors. I like to try and make a distinction between government and governance as any society is going to have some for...

Thank you for your reply! I did not use specific long distances to decide on modifiers for perception. I also try to keep what rules I write for perception focused in on practical uses only. I am interested in reading through your take on perception, would you be willing to link or post your rule se...

a wizard could also be someone self taught in secret -- "You stole old sage Tom's books? When Tom died, Didn't elder Greg tell us his house was dangerous and locked it up?" "I didn't steal anything, and well he didn't lock the kitchen window. The books were already open on the kitchen...

If you want to get excessively granular, I am drawing on the magic clown trope. Thanks, this was helpful for me to understand what you want to do. Apparently tvtropes has a whole Magical Clown section, and I'm actually familiar with a number of their examples (and apparently ronald mcdonald is one ...

Yes I did, the overall concept of the clown, in popular imagination. And more specifically, a warlock with that concept as a theme. [...] You're right, but there is an overall concept of clowns, and this pulls inspiration from that popular conception in the same way that pop culture generally pulls...

So you managed to not actually elaborate on what clown aesthetic you are trying to thematically recreate with this subclass. There isn't some platonic concept of the 'clown' qua clown, as should be clear from this thread -- many people have many ideas of what a 'clown' might entail. And going back t...

Thanks for your feedback! I definitely need to reorg the section, as a working draft I am most interested in making sure the rules work, but after that yes I need to make sure they are readable. Regarding the Blue Whale, I did actually list a similar example, i'll repaste it here: Creatures not usin...

Create Food and Water should be a cantrip. The existence of an economy obsoletes it. The labour of 0th level peasants obsoletes it. This would be like comparing attack spells to Magic Missile in 3e to determine if they're underpowered. Fundamentally by pretending the spell system is the only thing ...

People shouldn't be running survival games in D&D. Period. End of statement. They should use a different setting if they want people to give a fuck about the logistics of a 5 player band making their way from A to B. Being able to provide "nourishment" should be something done with co...

First, if anyone knows of past relevant threads that deal primarily with perception (or spot / listen) please link them. Often the den seems to fixate on stealth, and very little is said about perception, but I could be missing important contributions made previously. Perception is sort of the Ur-sk...

That's intended, actually. The idea is that with your pratfall, which is a magical effect rather than a normal pratfall, because you get it for being a warlock, you are able to kick some of the attack back at the attacker. If you keep half damage back, I would type the damage as psychic, with a 1/l...

Even with the reskin, I think Tiny Hut is also off theme -- Jesters typically are at the mercy of their lord for housing, and without one are cast to the wilds to fend for themselves. This is a clown warlock. Clowns have a different socioeconomic situation to jesters. The write up uses clown and je...

Pratfall requires a cool down -- once per short or long rest. Dealing half damage back to attacker seems a little off theme to me, and could create some odd moments, especially for range attacks. I would maybe also add some explicit language that the character can make a performance vs insight check...

Updated the first post to incorporate the discussion, added additional examples, modifiers, and tried to be slightly more repetitive in hopes that clarifies common questions. You can also give 'locating' an action cost. Ie, Tremorsense allows a creature to be 'detected' automatically, but locating t...

? there's a check that turns you slightly into a bush and that's somehow analogous to being slightly invisible? what game are you even talking about?

dazing, from what I can tell, was a condition mostly caused by a low level spell that had a save and a hard HD limit. Some designers, who were probably power gamers, then expanded what causes daze with unique abilities, additional spells, metamagic effects, many of which may not have saves or HD lim...

Simultaneously complaining that increasing your dex impacts both sneaking and lock picking by a +1 then turning around and saying you don't care about SLIGHT increases in skills is grade A doublethink. And since PL refuses to define his minimum threshold of care it's impossible to know what he means...

so it's okay if you don't care what a player wants? If someone only wants to be slightly better at jumping, that's no longer an option? yet weren't you ranting how buffing your dex will make you slightly better at both pick pockets and picking locks when you only wanted to be better at pick pocketin...

the reason why the daze condition is so terrible is because there are essentially no ways to become immune to it. There are plenty of ways to gain immunity to being paralyzed. Sure if you ever happen to become paralyzed it is slightly worse then being dazed, but high level 3.x d&d is all about m...

yes, dazing spell was one of the many reasons pathfinder got labeled 3.x, caster edition. Removing someone from combat for 3 or more rounds is about as good as killing them in the grand scheme of turn based combat.

Remember, I do think Classes have loosely this same problem. If I were getting the full wish list of character design freedom, or even the full "that seems actually achievable" cut down version of it I am definitely going, no base attributes, no classes, no races. Not in recognizable form...

PL ideas are no less arbitrary -- why must I be good at picking all locks? Maybe I only want to be good at picking mechanical locks and not magical (or digital) locks, why isn't there 2 or 3 or 4 lock picking skills and don't get me started on disable device -- it's outrageous my character is as goo...

Officially, the year is 1874. Historical divergence occurs with the presidential election in 1864. Lincoln was assassinated BEFORE the election, but still won. Johnson tried to end the war WITHOUT a Union Victory. Republicans in Congress impeached him and appointed Schuyler Colfax (Republican Speak...

It was probably addressed in the post, but do all players roll perception against a single enemy stealthing against them out of combat or do they use the passive group DCs as well, meaning they do not roll perception & the enemy is the only one to roll stealth (functionally the same mechanicall...