D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[James Gasik]

So in D&Dlandia, I think we can take it as granted that people don't associate heartbeat and breathing with life. Which makes sense, considering plants, oozes, undead, constructs, and who knows what else. I'm kind of surprised to see "trance" on that list, unless they're actually talking about an astral projection-style "trance" and not a hypnotic or meditative trance (as this was probably way before elf trances--were they introduced in the Complete Book of Elves, or was that strictly a 3e-onwards thing?).

Book of Elves called it "reverie", as I recall so, "trance" must be referring to something else. Hypnotism maybe?

 

[Faolyn]

If someone had used the equivalent of a Viking longboat, how much do they know about a Chinese junk or a brig? How about a schooner? Do they understand how the multiple sails work when they are used to 1 square sail?

Does any of that matter when it comes to knowing how to get a ride on a boat?

That's just types of boats. You were claiming they would know specific named ships and crew. I don't see how that is in any way a given outside of their sphere of influence and connections.

First, you ignored the reasons I gave--that they could know someone who worked on a particular boat (I never said entire crew; don't know where you go that idea). Are you saying it's impossible for my PC to know somebody who used to be from someplace other the PC's home town?

Heck, are you saying that it's impossible for me to have lived on the South Sea in my youth, moved to the Inland Sea, and then became a sailor?

As for "sphere of influence and connections," well, aside from the above and another possibility I gave (bardic tales), many settings are magic-rich enough so that long-distance communication is a thing. Sending stones are an uncommon item, and that's only if you go by exactly what's in the DMG--how about a more useful version used by organizations (such as a Merchant's Guild) to learn about important things (such as merchant vessels), who then provide some of that information to other interested parties?

And there can easily be nonmagical reasons for long-distance communication--the D&D webcomic The Weekly Roll has a spinoff about postmen (who apparently all have class levels, because the mail must go through). There's the idea of carrier pigeons, which in D&D could actually be intelligent or magical beings (there was a form of tasked genie back in 2e whose entire purpose was delivering messages). There's even the possibility of a pony (or hippogriff!) express.

My own upcoming Victorian-ish setting, thanks to the fact artificers exist, has telegrams and telephones, even if they're too expensive for most people to use regularly. The newspapers can afford them, though. If any of my players were playing a sailor, I'd certainly let them learn about ships on the other side of the world.

Sure, it's more that possible to have a setting where there's no way for the PCs to know anything about the world more than a few miles from their hometown: a low magic, low tech setting where few people ever travel. But are you really saying that people who aren't playing in settings like that should be just as limited by the rules as those who are?

 

[Faolyn]

In 3.Xe, my solution would have been to give the sailor a +2 synergy bonus to the Knowledge check. But in 5.Xe, incremental bonuses and named modifiers have been reduced to advantage/disadvantage and DM rulings, so...

File this one under "Reasons I miss crunchiness".

Level Up has skill specializations, which give you an expertise die on certain aspects of a skill. The expertise die is a d4, but if you get another one from a second source, it becomes a d6, then a d8.

 

[mamba]

Wouldn't it be more logical to say that the sailor wouldn't have worked on any ship in the south sea?

I know, I glossed over that to make the case clearer.

The feature is not about knowing of specific ships at all

 

[mamba]

The Dark Powers mess with Ravenloft's reality all the time. The PC gets some information from a shadowy figure (whom they never see again), telling them to communicate with their contact via a certain dead drop location.

which is not involving the feature at all…

 

[Faolyn]

which is not involving the feature at all…

"You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you."

Seems to involve it just fine. Your contact introduces you to the network of criminals, local messengers, caravan masters, and sailors.

 

[mamba]

Seems to involve it just fine.

no, it doesn’t, you managed to get a message to your contact without making use of the feature, specifically the below part is completely absent while it establishes how the feature works

specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you

Anyone can get a message to anyone else the way you described, they were approached by a stranger

 

[Oofta]

Does any of that matter when it comes to knowing how to get a ride on a boat?

You were the one who brought up knowing about different types of ships[1], not me.

First, you ignored the reasons I gave--that they could know someone who worked on a particular boat (I never said entire crew; don't know where you go that idea). Are you saying it's impossible for my PC to know somebody who used to be from someplace other the PC's home town?

In theory they could know someone. What are the odds? Because in campaigns I've personally run it's varied between close to 100% to 1 in a billion. As far as I'm concerned, it's up to the DM to decide, potentially with input from the PC backstory from when we created PCs.

Heck, are you saying that it's impossible for me to have lived on the South Sea in my youth, moved to the Inland Sea, and then became a sailor?

Did you establish that as part of your backstory?

As for "sphere of influence and connections," well, aside from the above and another possibility I gave (bardic tales), many settings are magic-rich enough so that long-distance communication is a thing. Sending stones are an uncommon item, and that's only if you go by exactly what's in the DMG--how about a more useful version used by organizations (such as a Merchant's Guild) to learn about important things (such as merchant vessels), who then provide some of that information to other interested parties?

And there can easily be nonmagical reasons for long-distance communication--the D&D webcomic The Weekly Roll has a spinoff about postmen (who apparently all have class levels, because the mail must go through). There's the idea of carrier pigeons, which in D&D could actually be intelligent or magical beings (there was a form of tasked genie back in 2e whose entire purpose was delivering messages). There's even the possibility of a pony (or hippogriff!) express.

My own upcoming Victorian-ish setting, thanks to the fact artificers exist, has telegrams and telephones, even if they're too expensive for most people to use regularly. The newspapers can afford them, though. If any of my players were playing a sailor, I'd certainly let them learn about ships on the other side of the world.

Sure, it's more that possible to have a setting where there's no way for the PCs to know anything about the world more than a few miles from their hometown: a low magic, low tech setting where few people ever travel. But are you really saying that people who aren't playing in settings like that should be just as limited by the rules as those who are?

How many people do you personally know well enough that they would do a favor for you? I'm not talking just they know your name and remember you, but know you well enough to go out of their way to do you a favor? A dozen? A hundred? How many thousands of sailors are there around the world and how far away from home does that circle extend?

But you also keep changing the goalposts here. First it was knowing something about sailing ships, then it's knowing someone, then it's knowing information in general about a locale far away from home. So what is it? Even if I knew a bunch of details about Beijing, how would that in any way help me get passage on a ship? But let's say that for whatever reason I know a bunch about China, how would that help when I found myself in Chile? Or, of course, the old standby of an alternate world where I had never been born.

Better, in my opinion, to give people benefits that that are portable to a variety of situations. Like ... oh an extra feat and possible advantage on certain checks depending on your background.

 

[Oofta]

no, it doesn’t, you managed to get a message to your contact without making use of the feature, specifically the below part is completely absent while it establishes how the feature work



Anyone can get a message to anyone else the way you described, they were approached by a stranger

But ... but ... I know someone who worked for Barack Obama, I should be able to get a message to him, right? My brother-in-law was in some meetings with Bill Gates, so that's another contact isn't it? This idea that there's somehow a global network of thieves willing to go out of their way to aid fellow thieves no matter what your standing or the standing of the criminals you associated with is just odd to me. Which is why I've always discussed this with people and handled it differently.

 

[Lanefan]

Wow. Now that's a DEEEP dive into a niche.

No wonder I never saw this or heard of it before.

Why on earth would a cleric waste a second level spell on this? Yikes.

IME it's most often used when something's encountered that may or may not be a creature but that the in-character players know nothing about*. Less commonly, it's used as a Mimic detector. And, due to a ruling I made decades ago and have stuck with, it also works as a pregnancy test.

* - two sessions ago my party met a shut down robot that they initially thought might be something alive inside heavy odd-looking armour; it showed no signs of being alive or sentient but they hit it with Detect Life just to make sure.