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    D&D General 0 HP Magic Missile = Death?

    So … a problem with the base rule is that it is inconsistent with the meaning of attacks in general. A successful weapon attack is not necessarily a single successful strike. (A single successful attack may not even be physical damage.) If individual strikes from weapons are not counted, why...
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    D&D General 0 HP Magic Missile = Death?

    Eh, anyone else just think the three failed saves rule is itself the problem? Or, that the saves caused by damage don’t care about the amount of damage? Three one point hits have the same effect as three d8 hits. I know this gets us out of rules interpretations. Also, it gets away from the...
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    Loki Season 2 Discussion - Spoilers

    My sense of it is that the Loom is a fail-safe for he who remains, not for the TVA. The understanding of what the Loom was for was wrong, until Loki goes back to He Who Remains. Loki decides to not try to preserve the timelines. He breaks the Loom, almost killing both the Sacred Timeline as...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

    In 5E, with bounded accuracy, that is largely the case. But bounded accuracy is a relatively new idea. Another principle is that the environment should scale with the player. A "locked door" is expected to be a "more well locked door" at 10'th level than at 5'th level. This was more...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

    Sure. But it still feels like an an odd encounter which was added into a crypt crawl, without doing much to integrate the encounter with the dungeon. A dungeon to which a hydra encounter was added, vs, a dungeon which has a hydra which may be encountered. What is the story reason (or dungeon...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

    Well, you might have a chat with the water weird (or maybe not). Or drag a cow down into the dungeon. Or try to sneak by. Or wait for the hydra to sleep, or for it to be away. The golden idol was protected by a gauntlet, which is usually linear. Sometimes, linear makes sense. Proving a...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

    Exactly this. I think I expressed my self poorly: “Looking like a spiral” was meant to express that the design looks interesting and possibly multiple connected, but it isn’t. It really just a line which has been bent twice. I consider this to be a problem because it is un-interesting, and...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

    Reading over the adventure, and reading the criticism, I'm finding that Alexander is not wrong, but he gives a poor review nevertheless. The adventure does have a lot of problems, but Alexander doesn't focus on the important ones. In the case of the dungeon with the Hydra, the problems are...
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    D&D General Jaquaying the dungeon - a term to avoid

    Yeah. What’s wrong with the word “linear”? As in, don’t make your dungeon too linear? Or, do put in multiple options for how a dungeon may be traversed? Related: Disguising a dungeon by bending it or making it a spiral or any other distortion still leaves a linear dungeon. Inventing a term...
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    Digging Into Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk

    I like the far realms intrusion idea, but having it create more mind flayers is stupid. The last thing that mind flayers need is a lot more mind flayers. A single mind flayer, if they eat one brain every two weeks, needs a population of about five hundred to a thousand sentients. More or fewer...
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    Loki Season 2 Discussion - Spoilers

    The scene towards the end, which has Miss Minutes and Renslayer, seems to show that Miss Minutes might not have been truthful. She seems to have a deeper intent. At least to control He Who Remains. TomB
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    Loki Season 2 Discussion - Spoilers

    I kindof figure the branches to be limited in extent, with each branch being a distinct bubble which expands at the speed of light. (FTL breaks this, but perhaps most places don't have access to FTL.) Perhaps less than FTL. That would allow pruning to be still dramatic, but also, to be more...
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    Ahsoka - SPOILERS

    I'm thinking the trance sequence was Ahsoka confronting aspects of herself, and deciding that she wanted to be more than a soldier. Her non-soldier aspect was choosing to live on. TomB
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    D&D 5E (2014) RAW: Using Purify Food and Drink to cure a party member?

    Haha, RAW nothing happens. Lactose isn't a poison if you are lactose intolerant. The bad stuff is a side effect of the lactose fermenting in your gut. And Vegan doesn't make milk "not food", just "not food that I will eat". (Or, if it's not food to you, still, nothing happens, since it is...
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    D&D 5E (2014) RAW: Using Purify Food and Drink to cure a party member?

    I don't disagree. I'd go with a "does a usual person consider it food" test. The spell is a good example of inherent ambiguity. "Food", "creature", "poisoned", and "diseased" are highly dependent on the caster to provide meaning. Chickens and cows are creatures, not food -- until they are...
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    D&D 5E (2014) RAW: Using Purify Food and Drink to cure a party member?

    A lot of plant food (plants as food, not food for plants) is alive when eaten. Poisonous berries, anyone? Also, a fertilized but undeveloped chicken egg. TomB
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    What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?

    Yeah. It has one of the standout emotional science fiction moments for me: At the ending, when he tells Nebogipfel to "go" (on ahead without him). Other works with standout moments were "The Dispossed", by Le Guin, (when he has his breakthrough), "Diaspora", by Egan, at the very end, and...
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    What is the single best fantasy novel of all time?

    Should we count works such as Le Morte d'Arthur (Sir Thomas Malory), Beowulf, or any number of Greek plays? TomB
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    What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?

    Nod. But, strictly, The Dispossessed, uses science to create a canvas, then tells a story which is not really sciency. (Apologies .. this is a bit of a ramble.) That being said, I struggle to find a true science fiction story. Solaris and Roadside Park stand out. Maybe some of Clarke, but...
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    Ahsoka - SPOILERS

    Hmm, doesn't that give us a large part of the original Star Wars movie? Sneak onto the Death Star to rescue the princess? Maybe that would work as a dark side analogue, but that feels too meta to me. TomB
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