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  1. billd91

    D&D General "True Neutral": Bunk or Hogwash

    It’s very Old Testamenty, which isn’t really surprising considering the other real-life religious parallels invoked in Dragonlance.
  2. billd91

    D&D's Obelisk Plotline Was Supposed to Be Resolved in Vecna: Eve of Ruin

    It's a pretty easy step from being a powerful wizard turned lich to assuming he had to encounter a lot of pretty obscure, probably even forbidden or secret, lore in order to amass the power he did and achieve his transformation. How would he NOT have anything to do with secrets is probably a...
  3. billd91

    D&D's Obelisk Plotline Was Supposed to Be Resolved in Vecna: Eve of Ruin

    Skeletor has a personality because we've all seen him acted out with a personality on a TV show. Vecna has a different personality every time he appears under a different Dungeon Master.
  4. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    The way I see it, there are 2 ways to handle difficulty 1. you set the DC to a static target based on how hard it is This works well if the PCs have assets proportional to their skill/proficiency to apply when making checks. PCs that are particularly skilled will naturally do better at higher...
  5. billd91

    D&D's Obelisk Plotline Was Supposed to Be Resolved in Vecna: Eve of Ruin

    That may be true for most liches, but early references to Vecna and Kas suggest he ruled over some domain at the height of his power. So having this particular lich/demigod be out there a bit more would certainly be in character.
  6. billd91

    Do you have kids of your own?

    I've got 2 daughters - 27 and 21. My elder is a pharm tech and lives on her own with roommates. My younger still lives at home, never started college, works at our FLGS (Pegasus Games) part time, and is planning to get her education as a medical technician when the next term starts up at our...
  7. billd91

    Homebrew Do people in your game world put cheese on their apple pies??

    Deliciously terrible. Oh, so deliciously terrible.
  8. billd91

    D&D General "True Neutral": Bunk or Hogwash

    I think a good example of a nod to balance or at least avoiding imbalance and conflict in fantasy literature comes from the short story "The Face of Chaos" by Lynn Abbey in the first Thieves World volume. The Rankans are about to consecrate a new temple by sacrificing a virgin under the...
  9. billd91

    Homebrew Do people in your game world put cheese on their apple pies??

    Because tiramisu is better than just coffee-soaked ladyfingers.
  10. billd91

    Olympics 2026 Thread

    Yeah, next one down the list from football is probably rugby. You generally aren't going to worry too much about covering up injuries like broken bones - but long-term, life-altering brain injuries - that's a big deal that leagues will cover up right and left.
  11. billd91

    D&D General Is Grappler feat mandatory/broken for monks?

    I wouldn't consider play over 10th level particularly niche. His save DC didn't crest 20 for a while, but even before that, he was a menace running around the battlefield stunning things right and left with a DC of 15 or 16. The fact was, before the nerf, he got so many tries at it that lots of...
  12. billd91

    Olympics 2026 Thread

    CTE turning up in high schoolers is also why I stopped watching football at all levels.
  13. billd91

    Olympics 2026 Thread

    No, we shouldn't, but that kind of question comes with all sorts of caveats. Any decision of this sort, including Vonn's, should come in consultation with appropriate medical experts as well as respect for someone making personal, if potentially short-sighted with respect to bodily damage...
  14. billd91

    D&D General Is Grappler feat mandatory/broken for monks?

    It did get hit with the nerf bat AND THIS IS A GOOD THING. I tell you, a high Con isn’t that much of a defense when the save DC is 20-ish and the monk is flurrying multiple shots a round. It rapidly peeled away legendary resistance as well.
  15. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Even with climbing or skiing, there may be some variation - for example, someone with an alpine adventuring background vs a bookworm from the city library. The alpine adventurer should be able to do things the bookworm can't and situations difficult for the bookworm would be routine for the...
  16. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    I'm not really sure what you mean with "the numbers only go up". An RPG could model Vonn's injured ACL as a flat penalty on the die or some equivalent of disadvantage on the check. Various RPGs take things like injuries and deviations from fitness into account, but most don't because most don't...
  17. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Ultimately, this is 5e in a nutshell. This edition encourages the DM to make a determination of Yes/No based on what the PC brings to the table and the nature of the task, and then suggests rolling only when Yes/No is unknown/unclear. So yeah, don't make the priest of Osiris make a roll about...
  18. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Honestly, that's real life where events will follow as complex a set of factors as they must in order to resolve a question such as "who will win this skiing event". But for a game, we don't know all or even most of the factors so we replace it with a stochastic factor to account for all of...
  19. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Static. 3e is the best edition for laying out what a difficulty class was and why for specific tasks (which stands to reason since players having well-informed options was that edition's mantra). It was just a bit cumbersome to use efficiently. That's why I'm OK with the loosey-goosey difficulty...
  20. billd91

    EN World What you thought a thread title said.

    Carolina Carnage butthurt live stream
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