Ahdok @ ahdok @ttrpg.network

I make comics sometimes: https://linktr.ee/ahdok

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2 yr. ago

She likes to pull her hair back out of her face, and wrap it around a bone to hold it firm - but some of the front tufts always escape.

Well, you could just buy one.

It's a classic. I wish the movement didn't require your full action though - the spell is level 5.

I'm pretty sure that the rules as intended for this one are that it just affects attacks, I'm afraid. Sage Advice repeatedly argues that the intention of wordings like this is that they don't extend to other effects.

Of course, it's perfectly fine to run your table different to sage advice. There's a lot of stuff in there that I think is rather silly, or bad design.

Were you able to see the whole space, you should be able to see the illusory duplicates fine (they're not "vampires" mechanically), but not the real vampire, so I'm in full agreement there.

It's a common trope in media and fantasy lore, Quite a few tropes of vampires are listed in the flavour text, rather than the statblock, and this is one of them.

...All of this is pretty sketchy though, it's definitely pushing the limits of what these spells or abilities are intended for, and "having your image move around inside you perfectly so nobody notices" would require an extreme level of control that I imagine most, if not all casters wouldn't have.

If we're trying to design an NPC vampire to foil the mirror check, it's probably better to have them use a custom spell or magic item that's explicitly for this purpose than to try and repurpose an existing spell to do it. "This amulet creates an illusory duplicate of you that fills the same space as your body. When you turn invisible, the illusion remains visible and moves in a random direction away from you" for example.

This approach has a lot of advantages I think.

1. If you let NPCs do it, then PCs can do it.
2. It doesn't feel like you're creatively abusing the rules to give NPCs an advantage
3. When the PCs beat the vampire and get the treasure they get a lightbulb moment when they realize what happened
4. The players get an interesting niche treasure out of it they can come up with clever uses for later.

I don't I can make a good case for "looking in a mirror" to use the "attack" rules. If it's an attack you'd have to make an attack roll (if you're not making an attack roll, it's not an attack.)

Likely, if there was a d20 roll involved, it'd be a perception check.

I think the illusory duplicates made by the magic are designed to "move around in your space" to make it hard to tell which one is actually you - the purpose of the spell is to make you harder to hit, so it's behaviour probably works to let that happen. It'd also be very difficult to get away with it in a social setting because you have to cast the spell first, it makes four duplicates, and they don't last that long...

Now on the other hand... Trickery Cleric "invoke duplicity" allows you to control the movements of the duplicate (which is incorporeal), so it might be possible to hide it inside you if you were really practiced. Konsi sometimes summons it in her exact position while standing still, then uses her second channel divinity slot to turn invisible and run away.

It'll only give you cover for a moment, but if they're doing some sort of "check every visitor for vampirism" check on the door, it might get you past.

I'll make a nice transparancied version and post it :)

Yeah, she has a few goblinoid features, larger ears, lack of pronounced tusky teeth. She's taller and prettier than most goblins (4ft) because she's free of Maglubiyet's hold, which twists and corrupts his servants.

I think the idea of the initial post is that, when presenting someone with a "guide" for running a game, you kind of expect someone to have read the whole thing at least once, and then use it for reference.

With the case of the 5e DMG, it actually has quite a lot of good advice in it, but most people running games haven't read it fully... You constantly see complaints about 5e saying "there's no advice for (x)" where the advice is just in the DMG

If you want the best rules to base a videogame on, I'd probably recommend you look at 4th edition.

4th edition rules are, largely, designed around running a systematic, balanced, combat simulation - most of the rules are deterministic and leave little ambiguity, or room for interpretation.

Most other editions of DnD have... more freeform rules, in places they read as guidelines for running a game, or they are ambiguous, or leave it up to the DM to decide how to run that particular thing. They're more conducive to roleplay but much less useful if you're trying to adapt them for a computer to run.

When I first picked up the Nobilis RPG, I read it cover-to-cover, the margins were always crammed full of stories and examples that really helped develop the setting and ideas and contextualize everything. I think the majority of RPGs that I've picked up have been read back to front... because what else are you going to do on your first pass?

I'll definitely agree that it's good to have books that work as decent reference manuals, especially for rules heavy games... but... have you tried to use the indexes in the 5e books - the PHB index is an experience and a half.

It's true. The fastball special is all about positioning, and closing the gap.

This is why you polymorph the fastball into something small and fuzzy first.

The main thrust of my argument is simply, and throughout, has been this:

In the last 50 years, "worker productivity" has increased dramatically. compensation has not. The increased wealth that we are all generating is not making our lives better - it's going into the pockets of billionaires.

As you put it "the real median wage has not changed since 1980". As you showed with the graph you posted, the increased wealth that is being generated is increasingly going to the wealthiest people. This is all the data we need to support my argument, and they're both claims you have made.

The "improved living conditions" from better technology and industrial processes do not REQUIRE us to be giving all the extra wealth we're generating to the wealthiest people. These would still exist if we were taxing billionaires and large companies more, enforcing better wages for regular people, and investing that wealth into social programs.

It shows extreme confidence to draw that many horses... One of the three impossible artist feats.

While it's true that new inventions do make people's lives materially better, the point that's being missed is... this is an inevitable consequence of the development of society, we'd have these new inventions regardless of our economic systems or choices of where to tax people, or economic policy. Those benefits aren't caused by the widening wealth gap, and the wealth of billionaires isn't required for new inventions to be made.

What we're talking about here, specifically, is that people are producing more wealth, but not getting wealthier. The wealth of people has "effectively stayed constant since the 1980s" but the total wealth we're creating has gone up significantly. It's certainly nice that we have more things we can spend that wealth on, but that's a distraction from the issue of where the rest of the wealth is going.

If you actually look at people's lives, "materially" and look past the inevitable march of technology, what else is happening? 70% of people are "living paycheck to paycheck"; poverty, and child poverty are massively increasing; many schools can't afford to give children textbooks; and teachers have to buy school supplies out of their own meager paychecks; the cost of healthcare is increasing, leaving many unable to afford it (or in non-USA countries, where everyone can afford healthcare, waiting lists are increasing due to poor funding); Towns are bankrupt and can't afford to repair infrastructure; the quality of most goods (clothes, houseware, and furniture especially) are decreasing to the point where they fall apart in a few years; and most public services are on the verge of collapse.

The cost of housing is so high that younger generations don't even aspire to own a home any more, the cost of higher education is so high that people expect their student debts to never be paid.

So yes, it's nice that we have Facetime and Playstations, Those things do make our lives better... but you have to consider, if the "increased productivity" of workers was going towards society and making our lives better instead of enriching billionaires, could we address some of this?

Your first argument is, again, very American-centric - yes the rate that wealth inequality is growing in the USA is less pronounced than in other places, but it was always pretty bad in the USA. The argument that "trends are similar in almost every developed country" is also a little disingenuous - it's true for the G8. In many European countries, they're actually taxing the wealthy sensibly and putting that money into public services to make everyone's lives better, the wealth gap is much smaller and the quality of life and happiness of regular people is better.

Again "a century ago" or longer doesn't matter because it's pre-industrial revolution. The total amount of "wealth to go around" was much smaller, and we were living under very different systems.

If a king or an emperor owns 50% of the wealth of a nation, and everyone else is equal, then yes, your graph will show "the top 1% have 50% of the wealth" but also your system is specifically designed to give all the money to one person. Arguing "well 100 or 200 years ago this was worse" is moot, because we're comparing different systems... Unless your point is that our current system is also designed to deprive all wealth and comfort to the masses to enrich a select few, and we should be "thankful" that it's less good at it.

We have to compare within the same system, and look for the best we can do. Unless you're specifically arguing that the wealth distribution in the 1970s is unsustainable, then that's an example of when we were capable of doing better, and it's okay to find that as something to aspire and build towards.

Lobbying your representatives for better worker protections is a joke, especially in America. Many representatives in the USA don't even hold surgeries, you can't talk to them directly. You can write them a letter, which they ignore. Rich corporations pay our representatives massive donations to their campaigns (or in other countries, they pay them via more circuitous routes), and they get the policy that benefits them.

Here's an example - Back at the start of the Trump administration, a bill was written by the house to make it legal for ISPs to sell your private information and browsing history to corporations for their own profits. A number of polling institutions went around and took some credible large-scale polls of public opinion about this. 98% of respondents opposed the bill. The legislation passed congress and is now law. Who's "lobbying" of congress matters? individuals, or Comcast?

There are a very small number of US representatives who refuse to take money from large corporations - and those, in general, seem to hold the interests of the people to heart. Before "lobbying your representatives" can work, there needs to be widespread grassroots movements to elect more of these people. Until that happens, there aren't representatives, there are rulers.

It's not inflammatory to argue for better systems. It's not a lie that while we've had a massive industrial revolution that increased the productivity of workers, those benefits have not been seen by the workers. We still work just as long, and just as hard, for an ever diminishing amount of the pie. You can say "oh but you have a fancy car" but... just look at the percentage of people who own their own home by generation. The current trends are extremely concerning and need to change.

I think this happened once in Buffy.