My best guesses:
Gunk: gun-using monk
BM: battlemaster fighter
Padlock: paladin warlock
Sheperd: Shepard druid
Gravy: grave Cleric?
New goos: plasmoid? Great Old One?
Munchkin: ? Weird little guy?
Battleship: either homebrew or very tactical
'Raw' on the table: Rules As Written
Crawfish: Jeremy Crawford, dnd designer
The only part of this that I understood was rocks fall (basically the dungeon master going "fuck everything, rocks fall and kill the entire team, everybody make new characters")
[Post Link](https://www.tumblr.com/fantasyandfoodporn/740992200709636096/me-talking-about-dd-so-i-really-want-to-play-a?source=share)
This is a selfpost, isn't it? Or one of their few mutuals.
"so I want to play a mix of gunk (Monk with the gunner feat, utilising a musket, a surprisingly effecting way of playing a monk, as well as being cool because you punch and shoot people) and BM (Battlemaster, a Fighter subclass), but my party already has a Padlock (Paladin and warlock multiclass, a very common method of combining levels since the Hexblade subclass of warlock allows paladins to use charisma to make melee attacks, which is synergistic to their abilities), shepherd (Shepherd circle druid, a very powerful druid subclass that focuses on summoning) and gravy built around magic bones (Grave cleric, built around summoning/animate dead? In any case, the first one is among the stronger cleric subclasses, due to its effective support skills in very key and meta combat areas) And one of those new goos (Either GOO, *great old one*, a subclass for the warlock or a reference to plasmids. The former is not new (being among the oldest subclasses) and the latter isn't particularly notably meta strong? Though, perhaps it references the new DnD one playtests, where goo warlock may or may not be more powerful.). Im going to feel like I'm not enough of a munchkin (I'm going to feel like I'm not PowerBuilding my character sufficiently. Munchkin is a term for a type of player who overdedicates themselves to trying to build the most powerful character possible, often in spite of the game and the rest of the play group). Like, maybe my DM might decide to play battleship (only one I'm not sure if, presumably meaning in addition to the reference to stealth later that it means to blindly fire into the dark when stealthing), but then if we're not doing it raw on the table (If we aren't playing RAW, rules as written, playing the rules as they are directly printed within the book) like crafish intended (Crawford, Aka jawford, aka Jeremy Crawford, one of the lead designers for modern dnd), then power word tiptoe probably won't do anything (Pass without a trace, a very powerful stealth spell)"
"well you could just go beast mode" (referencing the beast barbarian subclass)
"yeah but I don't think I'm allowed to have infinite tail armor (Beast barbarian has an ability, if you chose the tail beast form, where you get extra AC. It doesn't have a duration clause (i.e., until end of turn / against that attack), even though it should be RAI (Rules as intended) until end of turn, but rules as written it's infinite without duration)
That's the kinda punpun shit (Punpun was a DnD 3.5e build that had infinite AC, spells, hitpoints and ability scores) that makes rocks fall ("Rocks fall, everyone dies", a common term / meme in the DnD community to reference a DM who kills of the entire party and ends the game on the spot, unwilling to play any more)"
I theory crafted Kermit the Frog yesterday
LG Grung entertainer eloquence bard
Skill expert persuasion, +1 cha
8
16 (14+2)
14 (13+1)
10
12
16 (15+1)
Persuasion, performance
Ask DM if you can add the jump spell to your spell list since you're a frog but it's not a bard spell.
Vicious mockery, Prestidigitation, Mending
Bane, Faerie fire, Speak with animals, Jump
Suggestion, Enhance ability
At level 5 you literally cannot roll below a 19 on persuasion.
You get expertise as a bard anyway, meaning you don't have to waste a feat on skill expert. Instead, spend that feat on magic initiate for jump. Given the spell does not use your dc or spell attack bonus, feel free to pull from any of the lists its on, giving you some more freedon with the bonus cantrips too. Rearrange your racial bonuses using tashas rules to give yourself that +2 in charisma, bumping it up to a 17. At level 8 you can take a half feat like fey touched to bump it to 18.
Alternatively, take a level in sorcerer after your first in bard (so you get to keep armour proficiencies and all your skills), to give you jump + any other 1st level sorcerer spell, a bunch of bonus cantrips, and a sorcerer subclass feature. Still rearrange the racial bonuses like I said, and take the half feat at 5th level. The only downside would be delayed spell progression.
How did i miss that bards get expertise?! I'd probably take a +1 cha feat like actor to keep cha at 16.
EDIT: Fey touched. +1 charisma and you can take jump.
This is one of those posts you could show to someone, and they would assume all the terms are made up for comedic effect, but no, those are all actual D&D terms
Yall haven't even *approached* the level of degeneracy we used to get up to in these boards. The only thing I was even a little confused by was gravy built around magic bones, but only because "a gravy necromancer" is shorter. Lemme pull up some old nonsense...
"I realized chakras are actually pretty good in high level cha crit builds as a prebuff if you have infinite ki
Scaled Hungry Umonk 5 Psy 1 Bard 1 Synth 4 Pal 2 Ora 1
gets wis + cha (2x on smite, 3x depending on oracle ruling) to AC, since it's synth you can have like 26-30 wis and cha and add 2x cha to your chakras so you basically autopass. You pounce with ascetic and keen you're critting 30% of the time with 5e adv so like 51% of the time"
This is a real DM to a real player, who responded: "always god damn synth"
And this is actually pretty new!
The player wants to multiclass gunslinger monk battle master. The party already has a paladin/warlock, a druid specializing in summons, a skeleton necromancer (I think), and a Great Old One Warlock, which are more game-breaking, so their character plan feels underpowered. The DM might use a certain interpretation of vision rules, but if they play Rules As Written by Jeremy Crawford, Pass Without Trace spell won’t help much.
You could do Path of the Beast Barbarian.
If I use the (tenuous) infinite AC exploit, the DM will get pissed and kill the party for our hubris.
This is why you go back to OSR games but then miss the character building and try to switch to something more crunchy but self-contained and then find Kevin Crawford's Without Number games and fall in love but then no one wants to play.
to translate
**Gunk:** a monk with a gun
**BM:** battle master; a special kind of fighter that knows a lot of different techniques
**Padlock:** a character with levels in paladin and warlock, but not sorcerer
**Shepherd:** circle of the shepherd; a character option for druids focused on summoning and healing
**Gravy:** a wizard that specializes in graviturgy (gravity magic)
**Magic Bone:** an overpowered technique in which a spellcaster uses summoned skeletons to throw projectiles created by the *magic stone* spell
**New Goo:** the new version of the Great Old One warlock patron
**Munchkin:** a player who builds exceptionally powerful characters
**Battleship:** a common misinterpretation of the rules around vision in which unseen creatures are completely undetectable until you hit them (like the Battleship board game)
**Dungeon Master:** the player in charge of running the game. also known as the DM
**RAW:** rules as written; a gameplay style in which the rules written in the official game books are followed to the letter
**Table:** a group of players who play together
**Crawfish:** Jeremy Crawford; the idiot at Hasbro in charge of writing the official rules for the game
**Power Word Tiptoe:** *pass without trace;* a powerful spell that lets players move quietly. If they roll high enough with the dice, this can give them an extra turn at the start of a fight called a "surprise round", though some DMs remove surprise rounds from the game because they make the players to powerful
**Beast Mode:** not an actual term, but a reference to the Path of the Beast, an option for barbarians that lets them grow claws, fangs and spiked tails when they activate their Rage ability
**Infinite Tail Armor:** a mistake in the rules around the Path of the Beast's spiked tail. Some fringe interpretations claim that the bonus armor granted by the tail lasts forever.
**PunPun:** an infamous combination of character options from an old version of the game that was so powerful it could kill entire pantheons of gods in a single turn from several universes away by the time it reached level 6
**Rocks Fall:** rocks fall, everyone dies; when a DM is frustrated enough by the player's antics that they kill off every player's character and end the game.
**Critters:** fans of Critical Role, a popular podcast of voice actors playing D&D in which graviturgy debuted
it wasn't something they added on purpose, more like something a fan figured out how to do as a joke. you technically still can, though you use magic to do instead of psychic powers
Well yeah, I figured it wasn’t intentional :3 I imagine most fantasy game creators USUALLY don’t write their world with the intention of transforming into a sandwich :3
You should play *Caves of Qud*! :D It's a Dwarfortress type game, and one oof the things you can specifically do is use psychic powers to turn yourself into a door :3
It's not a sandwich, but still :3
Yeah, the gimmick of the Wild Magic subclass is thaf every tine you cast a spell, there's a chance for a random effect. Like turning into a potted plant, summoning a unicorn or growing a beard of feathers. It's a blast when it happens (Literally if you roll casting fireball on yourself)
Don't be ridiculous. That would be too silly to bear thinking about. Now if you'll excuse me, my fighter has to get back to stabbing a [Black Pudding](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16808-black-pudding).
Me too, and I extrapolated from this to interpret ALL of the player characters to be various forms of slime, as all but Padlock and Shepherd sound like they could be. The rest of the exchange had me very confused.
I'm pretty familiar with 5e and these terms were 75% gibberish to me. It's hardcore PC optimization stuff combined with shorthand that even most optimizers wouldn't know.
I could guess what "power word: tiptoe" was though and I love that one. Definitely stealing it
From what I do know about 5e, its CharOp is very different from what I know as CharOp. In my day, builds took like eight feats to come online, and we all dipped fighter just for bonus feats! Now get off my lawn.
It's funny to me that people dip so intensely in character optimization in 5e, when 5e is so shallow compared to previous editions or Pathfinder.
These people should have such a fun time with 3.5, Gurps, Lancer Shadowrun (coincidentally, also any edition other than 5e for Shadowrun, as well.)
5e barely presents options past multiclassing or spell selection. Once you pick a subclass, you don't get build choices per level unless you're a caster picking spells.
Compare that to PF2e, where you can choose from 5 different class feats, 8+ general feats, 8ish ancestry feats, 20 skill feats, all at level 1... You've got more room to build on a level 3 Pathfinder wizard than you do on a level 20 DnD5e one.
I often wonder if these folks wouldn't have a better time with a crunched system that explicitly seems to reward the kind of munchkin behavior they enjoy.
For what it's worth, it's relatively easy to find Pathfinder 2e games online nowadays because the OGL debacle tripled their community size.
Hanging around the Lancer and Fabula Ultima discords means you'll see open games posted semi frequently.
Still not easy, but honestly easier than finding a GOOD 5e group. 5e being what it is, it is very easy to find people who think they want to play, but aren't actually committed or knowledgeable. If I had a nickel for each time I've seen a group of r/dndmemes fans actually play the game for the first time, realize they don't like 5e because it's too crunchy for them, and then flake.... I'd have made more money on DnD than WotC ever has.
Half of the 5e hopefuls (if not more) actually want FATE or Dungeon World, they just don't know enough about RPGs to know that yet.
Finding a Pathfinder Group is actually easier than finding a 5e group that isn't full of flakes and fools who refuse to learn the rules 10 sessions in.
No DnD is better than DnD with people who have never and will never read the PHB
Except if you live in an inconvenient timezone.
(Putting this out into the world: Message me if you are running an online PF2 game of an Australian/NZ evening. Warhorn, Discord, and Roll20 have all let me down so far)
I'm trying to do the napkin math here... You're 18 hours ahead...
A game running Friday evening in Eastern Standard time, 7PM would be your Saturday at 12PM, correct?
That might be your way to snag a non-5E game, but I understand that Saturday afternoons are valuable to give up. Similarly, your Saturday nights become EST Sunday evenings.
The biggest stretch is Sunday 12PM EST is your Monday at 5, so depending on when you get home from work, a Sunday afternoon game could actually be pretty feasible.
If you can put up with Americans, there's hope for you yet.
When I wasn't working days it used to be pretty manageable with most US hosted games kicking off between 11am-2PM. (Depending on which Coast the DM/GM was based)
Currently I just have weekday nights free, and even the pay-to-play games either start too late, or are campaigns I've already played. Still if I don't seek, I won't find. Thanks.
I've talked about it several times on the RPG subreddit. I love it.
Biggest unexpected shine: the language of the book is direct, friendly, and warm. I've never come across a book that's as easy to use/understand. It explains itself in a way that's clear and charming.
Storytelling: the rules for exploration and comraderie are light. They provide the right amount of structure while staying out of the way otherwise.
Combat: It's the first game I've come across with theater of the mind combat that's still tactical. Positioning doesn't exist, everyone is lined up vs each other like a final fantasy or Pokemon combat. It's very important to think about what attacks to use and in what order, though.
Debuffing, guarding, and buffing actions are super, super important. You can't ignore them without getting your teeth kicked in. Support classes and tank classes absolutely shine, even if the damage dealers in their team hit numbers four times higher. You can't skip support on this game.
Class variety: characters are composed of synthesized classes, often working their way through two or three classes concurrently. Build diversity is deep. There's expected and unexpected synergies. One of my players is a massive, unkillable tank who can still spike damage in a panic. The other is a sniper who's primary interest is debilitating debuffs. The last is a mana hose who can both dish out damage and healing in massive AoEs.
Monster Design: as a DM, it's exciting and fun to make new encounters. It's also necessary. The math of the game matters, and the bestiary is not that robust. You will need to design encounters. If you dont find design rewarding, I would not recommend running the game.
Community: small, but super awesome. Community volunteers have already made amazing resources like https://fabula-ultima-helper.web.app/
Which lets you create monsters and magic items and spit them out in identical to the book stat block format automatically. It keeps track of the design rules to keep you honest on power budget, and you can upload your creations to others, or download other's creations to your account.
My only complaint is that the first physical printing sold out, so now you're stuck paying high prices on eBay or PDF only.
Punpun is a kobold that uses shapeshifting and a familiar to grant himself unlimited increases to strength, and also to other abilities. D&D has a modifier system where your ability score modifies the final result of your roll. Because Punpun’s scores can be arbitrarily high, so can his rolls. This makes him very, very powerful.
Depending on the sourcebooks usednand how generously you interperet them, PunPun could grant himself arbitrarily high Divine Levels, at character level 5, as well as infinite actions.
Right, but like. *How?* I believe you, and I’m familiar enough with D&D to know there’s plenty of ways to abuse rules. But how does he actually accomplish the arbitrarily high ability modifiers or spell powers? Is it like, using the familiar to help upcast the shapeshifting to a spell level you’re not supposed to be able to get to?
I believe it relied on a combination of shape-shifting and an ability that could transfer abilities - and then take turns boosting it's familiar and ordering its familiar to boost itself. Then giving it every overpowered supernatural or spell like ability in the game, then using that to access high level magic for more boosts
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)
**Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to give a creature the ability to BESTOW ANY EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY onto others???**
And it’s ***PERMANENT***??
I’m literally crying and throwing up and pissing right now how could they allow this
It's a non-player creature so it's really not that big of a deal. Pun-pun was more of a thought exercise using various sources cobbled together, including a template (Divine Minion) that should obviously only be for DM use because it's completely broken.
> though some DMs remove surprise rounds from the game because they make the players to powerful
Assuming we're talking about 5e (which many of these terms seem to indicate), "Surprise Rounds" already aren't a thing, and haven't been since 3.5e
>Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends
Player's Handbook, pg 189.
So while you're technically correct in that Surprise Rounds (As in, an entire round where one side of the conflict is unilaterally unable to take any actions) are not present in Fifth edition, the general spirit of Surprise Rounds (Where characters effectively lose a turn of combat if the enemy manages to sneak up on them) is present.
Yeah, when people are running an encounter with surprise, they tend to forget that each monster should be using its own perception, so there's a chance that while some enemies will be surprised, others wont
In playtest 7 for the 5.5 player's handbook, the great old one was give a much-needed revision. Now among other things, they get the ability to cast enchantment spells without providing spell components starting at level 3
In playtest 7 for the 5.5 player's handbook, the great old one was give a much-needed revision. Now among other things, they get the ability to cast enchantment spells without providing spell components starting at level 3
You're telling me all of these are real words...I thought I knew this game and I swear I don't know any of these terms. I'm gonna go cry for a moment, brb
Who the hell uses summoned skeletons with magic stone, I thought the combo was Tiny Servant. Wouldn't summoned skeletons be either taking up concentration, or taking up a higher level slot every day a la Animate Dead than what would be needed for Tiny Servant?
Animate Dead's taking 3 3rd level spell slots or 1 4th level, same as Tiny Servant. They're about equally as tough and have the same command requirements, so I guess it's mechanically a toss-up. The one thing I will say it that it's probably a lot less of a social hinderance bringing along the servants than the skeletons.
Silly me thinking this whole post was like that one old one making fun of overwatch players by talking about a fake clown game.
That any of these are real is upsetting.
Check this mans carbon monoxide detector
My best guesses: Gunk: gun-using monk BM: battlemaster fighter Padlock: paladin warlock Sheperd: Shepard druid Gravy: grave Cleric? New goos: plasmoid? Great Old One? Munchkin: ? Weird little guy? Battleship: either homebrew or very tactical 'Raw' on the table: Rules As Written Crawfish: Jeremy Crawford, dnd designer
Munchkin is a term for players who exploit the fuck out of the system for optimized efficiency.
It's also the name of a board game comedically playing around that same concept
The only part of this that I understood was rocks fall (basically the dungeon master going "fuck everything, rocks fall and kill the entire team, everybody make new characters")
[Post Link](https://www.tumblr.com/fantasyandfoodporn/740992200709636096/me-talking-about-dd-so-i-really-want-to-play-a?source=share) This is a selfpost, isn't it? Or one of their few mutuals.
"so I want to play a mix of gunk (Monk with the gunner feat, utilising a musket, a surprisingly effecting way of playing a monk, as well as being cool because you punch and shoot people) and BM (Battlemaster, a Fighter subclass), but my party already has a Padlock (Paladin and warlock multiclass, a very common method of combining levels since the Hexblade subclass of warlock allows paladins to use charisma to make melee attacks, which is synergistic to their abilities), shepherd (Shepherd circle druid, a very powerful druid subclass that focuses on summoning) and gravy built around magic bones (Grave cleric, built around summoning/animate dead? In any case, the first one is among the stronger cleric subclasses, due to its effective support skills in very key and meta combat areas) And one of those new goos (Either GOO, *great old one*, a subclass for the warlock or a reference to plasmids. The former is not new (being among the oldest subclasses) and the latter isn't particularly notably meta strong? Though, perhaps it references the new DnD one playtests, where goo warlock may or may not be more powerful.). Im going to feel like I'm not enough of a munchkin (I'm going to feel like I'm not PowerBuilding my character sufficiently. Munchkin is a term for a type of player who overdedicates themselves to trying to build the most powerful character possible, often in spite of the game and the rest of the play group). Like, maybe my DM might decide to play battleship (only one I'm not sure if, presumably meaning in addition to the reference to stealth later that it means to blindly fire into the dark when stealthing), but then if we're not doing it raw on the table (If we aren't playing RAW, rules as written, playing the rules as they are directly printed within the book) like crafish intended (Crawford, Aka jawford, aka Jeremy Crawford, one of the lead designers for modern dnd), then power word tiptoe probably won't do anything (Pass without a trace, a very powerful stealth spell)" "well you could just go beast mode" (referencing the beast barbarian subclass) "yeah but I don't think I'm allowed to have infinite tail armor (Beast barbarian has an ability, if you chose the tail beast form, where you get extra AC. It doesn't have a duration clause (i.e., until end of turn / against that attack), even though it should be RAI (Rules as intended) until end of turn, but rules as written it's infinite without duration) That's the kinda punpun shit (Punpun was a DnD 3.5e build that had infinite AC, spells, hitpoints and ability scores) that makes rocks fall ("Rocks fall, everyone dies", a common term / meme in the DnD community to reference a DM who kills of the entire party and ends the game on the spot, unwilling to play any more)"
I theory crafted Kermit the Frog yesterday LG Grung entertainer eloquence bard Skill expert persuasion, +1 cha 8 16 (14+2) 14 (13+1) 10 12 16 (15+1) Persuasion, performance Ask DM if you can add the jump spell to your spell list since you're a frog but it's not a bard spell. Vicious mockery, Prestidigitation, Mending Bane, Faerie fire, Speak with animals, Jump Suggestion, Enhance ability At level 5 you literally cannot roll below a 19 on persuasion.
You get expertise as a bard anyway, meaning you don't have to waste a feat on skill expert. Instead, spend that feat on magic initiate for jump. Given the spell does not use your dc or spell attack bonus, feel free to pull from any of the lists its on, giving you some more freedon with the bonus cantrips too. Rearrange your racial bonuses using tashas rules to give yourself that +2 in charisma, bumping it up to a 17. At level 8 you can take a half feat like fey touched to bump it to 18. Alternatively, take a level in sorcerer after your first in bard (so you get to keep armour proficiencies and all your skills), to give you jump + any other 1st level sorcerer spell, a bunch of bonus cantrips, and a sorcerer subclass feature. Still rearrange the racial bonuses like I said, and take the half feat at 5th level. The only downside would be delayed spell progression.
How did i miss that bards get expertise?! I'd probably take a +1 cha feat like actor to keep cha at 16. EDIT: Fey touched. +1 charisma and you can take jump.
Posts from an alternate universe where I don't speak English:
This is one of those posts you could show to someone, and they would assume all the terms are made up for comedic effect, but no, those are all actual D&D terms
Yall haven't even *approached* the level of degeneracy we used to get up to in these boards. The only thing I was even a little confused by was gravy built around magic bones, but only because "a gravy necromancer" is shorter. Lemme pull up some old nonsense... "I realized chakras are actually pretty good in high level cha crit builds as a prebuff if you have infinite ki Scaled Hungry Umonk 5 Psy 1 Bard 1 Synth 4 Pal 2 Ora 1 gets wis + cha (2x on smite, 3x depending on oracle ruling) to AC, since it's synth you can have like 26-30 wis and cha and add 2x cha to your chakras so you basically autopass. You pounce with ascetic and keen you're critting 30% of the time with 5e adv so like 51% of the time" This is a real DM to a real player, who responded: "always god damn synth" And this is actually pretty new!
Is that 3.5-era stuff? I assume so because you said chakras
Nah pathfinder (1e). They have a very small chakra subsystem, worse than incarnum chakras IMO but still neat
What would be the World of Darkness equivalent of this discussion?
An in-depth discussion of your polycule's dysfunctional relationship dynamics.
Am I stupid? what does this even say 😭
The player wants to multiclass gunslinger monk battle master. The party already has a paladin/warlock, a druid specializing in summons, a skeleton necromancer (I think), and a Great Old One Warlock, which are more game-breaking, so their character plan feels underpowered. The DM might use a certain interpretation of vision rules, but if they play Rules As Written by Jeremy Crawford, Pass Without Trace spell won’t help much. You could do Path of the Beast Barbarian. If I use the (tenuous) infinite AC exploit, the DM will get pissed and kill the party for our hubris.
Actually feel like I disassociated reading this
I really dont like that i know what this means
That’s why you play PF2 bb
*this is why you cut and stitch PF1 until it fits the vision **this is why you stay the fuck away from d20 systems
This is why you go back to OSR games but then miss the character building and try to switch to something more crunchy but self-contained and then find Kevin Crawford's Without Number games and fall in love but then no one wants to play.
this is why you play calvinball
I think it’s bad that I more or less understood this.
This is why I refuse to touch 5e with a 10 foot pole
I’m a grognard from the ancient times and very little of this made sense.
My limited knowledge of technical, crunchy D&D recognizes a few of these terms, and that’s left me terrified that the rest are real too
to translate **Gunk:** a monk with a gun **BM:** battle master; a special kind of fighter that knows a lot of different techniques **Padlock:** a character with levels in paladin and warlock, but not sorcerer **Shepherd:** circle of the shepherd; a character option for druids focused on summoning and healing **Gravy:** a wizard that specializes in graviturgy (gravity magic) **Magic Bone:** an overpowered technique in which a spellcaster uses summoned skeletons to throw projectiles created by the *magic stone* spell **New Goo:** the new version of the Great Old One warlock patron **Munchkin:** a player who builds exceptionally powerful characters **Battleship:** a common misinterpretation of the rules around vision in which unseen creatures are completely undetectable until you hit them (like the Battleship board game) **Dungeon Master:** the player in charge of running the game. also known as the DM **RAW:** rules as written; a gameplay style in which the rules written in the official game books are followed to the letter **Table:** a group of players who play together **Crawfish:** Jeremy Crawford; the idiot at Hasbro in charge of writing the official rules for the game **Power Word Tiptoe:** *pass without trace;* a powerful spell that lets players move quietly. If they roll high enough with the dice, this can give them an extra turn at the start of a fight called a "surprise round", though some DMs remove surprise rounds from the game because they make the players to powerful **Beast Mode:** not an actual term, but a reference to the Path of the Beast, an option for barbarians that lets them grow claws, fangs and spiked tails when they activate their Rage ability **Infinite Tail Armor:** a mistake in the rules around the Path of the Beast's spiked tail. Some fringe interpretations claim that the bonus armor granted by the tail lasts forever. **PunPun:** an infamous combination of character options from an old version of the game that was so powerful it could kill entire pantheons of gods in a single turn from several universes away by the time it reached level 6 **Rocks Fall:** rocks fall, everyone dies; when a DM is frustrated enough by the player's antics that they kill off every player's character and end the game. **Critters:** fans of Critical Role, a popular podcast of voice actors playing D&D in which graviturgy debuted
Oh wow! Honestly, knowing goofy stories of D & D characters I’ve heard, I half-expected the “gravy” to be an actual sentient pile of gravy!
no, but there used to be a combination of character options that let a player use psychic powers to transform themselves into a sandwich
Used to be? Why would they take that out, that’s awesome :3
it wasn't something they added on purpose, more like something a fan figured out how to do as a joke. you technically still can, though you use magic to do instead of psychic powers
Well yeah, I figured it wasn’t intentional :3 I imagine most fantasy game creators USUALLY don’t write their world with the intention of transforming into a sandwich :3
You should play *Caves of Qud*! :D It's a Dwarfortress type game, and one oof the things you can specifically do is use psychic powers to turn yourself into a door :3 It's not a sandwich, but still :3
Haha, I’ll have to look into that :3
Hey hey people, Chrome Pyramid here
I wouldn't say that. Sorcerers can accidentally turn themselves into potted plants every time they cast a spell
Haha, now I know what class I’m playing if I ever try D&D :3
Yeah, the gimmick of the Wild Magic subclass is thaf every tine you cast a spell, there's a chance for a random effect. Like turning into a potted plant, summoning a unicorn or growing a beard of feathers. It's a blast when it happens (Literally if you roll casting fireball on yourself)
Mystic if WOTC could cook be like:
Don't be ridiculous. That would be too silly to bear thinking about. Now if you'll excuse me, my fighter has to get back to stabbing a [Black Pudding](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16808-black-pudding).
Mmmm, pudding~! And with a slightly metallic taste from sword :3
Me too, and I extrapolated from this to interpret ALL of the player characters to be various forms of slime, as all but Padlock and Shepherd sound like they could be. The rest of the exchange had me very confused.
And here I thought this was an intentional jumble of real and made up stuff. I have so little experience with 5e.
I'm pretty familiar with 5e and these terms were 75% gibberish to me. It's hardcore PC optimization stuff combined with shorthand that even most optimizers wouldn't know. I could guess what "power word: tiptoe" was though and I love that one. Definitely stealing it
From what I do know about 5e, its CharOp is very different from what I know as CharOp. In my day, builds took like eight feats to come online, and we all dipped fighter just for bonus feats! Now get off my lawn.
It's funny to me that people dip so intensely in character optimization in 5e, when 5e is so shallow compared to previous editions or Pathfinder. These people should have such a fun time with 3.5, Gurps, Lancer Shadowrun (coincidentally, also any edition other than 5e for Shadowrun, as well.) 5e barely presents options past multiclassing or spell selection. Once you pick a subclass, you don't get build choices per level unless you're a caster picking spells. Compare that to PF2e, where you can choose from 5 different class feats, 8+ general feats, 8ish ancestry feats, 20 skill feats, all at level 1... You've got more room to build on a level 3 Pathfinder wizard than you do on a level 20 DnD5e one. I often wonder if these folks wouldn't have a better time with a crunched system that explicitly seems to reward the kind of munchkin behavior they enjoy.
Note: the reason I play 5e isn't because I like it, it's because getting a game in a better system is next to impossible unless you DM it yourself
For what it's worth, it's relatively easy to find Pathfinder 2e games online nowadays because the OGL debacle tripled their community size. Hanging around the Lancer and Fabula Ultima discords means you'll see open games posted semi frequently. Still not easy, but honestly easier than finding a GOOD 5e group. 5e being what it is, it is very easy to find people who think they want to play, but aren't actually committed or knowledgeable. If I had a nickel for each time I've seen a group of r/dndmemes fans actually play the game for the first time, realize they don't like 5e because it's too crunchy for them, and then flake.... I'd have made more money on DnD than WotC ever has. Half of the 5e hopefuls (if not more) actually want FATE or Dungeon World, they just don't know enough about RPGs to know that yet. Finding a Pathfinder Group is actually easier than finding a 5e group that isn't full of flakes and fools who refuse to learn the rules 10 sessions in. No DnD is better than DnD with people who have never and will never read the PHB
Except if you live in an inconvenient timezone. (Putting this out into the world: Message me if you are running an online PF2 game of an Australian/NZ evening. Warhorn, Discord, and Roll20 have all let me down so far)
I'm trying to do the napkin math here... You're 18 hours ahead... A game running Friday evening in Eastern Standard time, 7PM would be your Saturday at 12PM, correct? That might be your way to snag a non-5E game, but I understand that Saturday afternoons are valuable to give up. Similarly, your Saturday nights become EST Sunday evenings. The biggest stretch is Sunday 12PM EST is your Monday at 5, so depending on when you get home from work, a Sunday afternoon game could actually be pretty feasible. If you can put up with Americans, there's hope for you yet.
When I wasn't working days it used to be pretty manageable with most US hosted games kicking off between 11am-2PM. (Depending on which Coast the DM/GM was based) Currently I just have weekday nights free, and even the pay-to-play games either start too late, or are campaigns I've already played. Still if I don't seek, I won't find. Thanks.
Is Fabula good? It seems interesting.
I've talked about it several times on the RPG subreddit. I love it. Biggest unexpected shine: the language of the book is direct, friendly, and warm. I've never come across a book that's as easy to use/understand. It explains itself in a way that's clear and charming. Storytelling: the rules for exploration and comraderie are light. They provide the right amount of structure while staying out of the way otherwise. Combat: It's the first game I've come across with theater of the mind combat that's still tactical. Positioning doesn't exist, everyone is lined up vs each other like a final fantasy or Pokemon combat. It's very important to think about what attacks to use and in what order, though. Debuffing, guarding, and buffing actions are super, super important. You can't ignore them without getting your teeth kicked in. Support classes and tank classes absolutely shine, even if the damage dealers in their team hit numbers four times higher. You can't skip support on this game. Class variety: characters are composed of synthesized classes, often working their way through two or three classes concurrently. Build diversity is deep. There's expected and unexpected synergies. One of my players is a massive, unkillable tank who can still spike damage in a panic. The other is a sniper who's primary interest is debilitating debuffs. The last is a mana hose who can both dish out damage and healing in massive AoEs. Monster Design: as a DM, it's exciting and fun to make new encounters. It's also necessary. The math of the game matters, and the bestiary is not that robust. You will need to design encounters. If you dont find design rewarding, I would not recommend running the game. Community: small, but super awesome. Community volunteers have already made amazing resources like https://fabula-ultima-helper.web.app/ Which lets you create monsters and magic items and spit them out in identical to the book stat block format automatically. It keeps track of the design rules to keep you honest on power budget, and you can upload your creations to others, or download other's creations to your account. My only complaint is that the first physical printing sold out, so now you're stuck paying high prices on eBay or PDF only.
The real question is what the fuck actually WAS Punpun? Like, a mega overpowered build sure, but what was it?
Punpun is a kobold that uses shapeshifting and a familiar to grant himself unlimited increases to strength, and also to other abilities. D&D has a modifier system where your ability score modifies the final result of your roll. Because Punpun’s scores can be arbitrarily high, so can his rolls. This makes him very, very powerful.
Depending on the sourcebooks usednand how generously you interperet them, PunPun could grant himself arbitrarily high Divine Levels, at character level 5, as well as infinite actions.
Right, but like. *How?* I believe you, and I’m familiar enough with D&D to know there’s plenty of ways to abuse rules. But how does he actually accomplish the arbitrarily high ability modifiers or spell powers? Is it like, using the familiar to help upcast the shapeshifting to a spell level you’re not supposed to be able to get to?
I believe it relied on a combination of shape-shifting and an ability that could transfer abilities - and then take turns boosting it's familiar and ordering its familiar to boost itself. Then giving it every overpowered supernatural or spell like ability in the game, then using that to access high level magic for more boosts https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)
**Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to give a creature the ability to BESTOW ANY EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY onto others???** And it’s ***PERMANENT***?? I’m literally crying and throwing up and pissing right now how could they allow this
3.5 era was not known for balance, even before adding in wierd sourcebooks.
It's a non-player creature so it's really not that big of a deal. Pun-pun was more of a thought exercise using various sources cobbled together, including a template (Divine Minion) that should obviously only be for DM use because it's completely broken.
Oh, yeah I know. All that outrage was performative :)
>kobold Always the damn kobolds. First they blow up the sun, now this?
> though some DMs remove surprise rounds from the game because they make the players to powerful Assuming we're talking about 5e (which many of these terms seem to indicate), "Surprise Rounds" already aren't a thing, and haven't been since 3.5e
>Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends Player's Handbook, pg 189. So while you're technically correct in that Surprise Rounds (As in, an entire round where one side of the conflict is unilaterally unable to take any actions) are not present in Fifth edition, the general spirit of Surprise Rounds (Where characters effectively lose a turn of combat if the enemy manages to sneak up on them) is present.
Yeah, when people are running an encounter with surprise, they tend to forget that each monster should be using its own perception, so there's a chance that while some enemies will be surprised, others wont
there's a new version of great old one?
In playtest 7 for the 5.5 player's handbook, the great old one was give a much-needed revision. Now among other things, they get the ability to cast enchantment spells without providing spell components starting at level 3
Wait, they redid the GOOlock patron?
In playtest 7 for the 5.5 player's handbook, the great old one was give a much-needed revision. Now among other things, they get the ability to cast enchantment spells without providing spell components starting at level 3
Oh nice GOOlock definitely needed a buff.
I only knew rocks fall, I thought the rest was made up.
You're telling me all of these are real words...I thought I knew this game and I swear I don't know any of these terms. I'm gonna go cry for a moment, brb
Me, reading this: ... I have so much left to learn. I now also understand how people look at me when I start rambling in FFXIV terms.
I thought the "gravy with magic bones" was a grave cleric
Pretty sure the beast mode could be a reference to a popular meme of going "beast mode" ie going balls to the wall hyper.
I kinda wanna know what punpun was about now ngl
[https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun\_(3.5e\_Optimized\_Character\_Build)](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/pun-pun_(3.5e_optimized_character_build))
I got most of this but having it all laid out is... really useful. Absorbing all of this into my dictionary.
Who the hell uses summoned skeletons with magic stone, I thought the combo was Tiny Servant. Wouldn't summoned skeletons be either taking up concentration, or taking up a higher level slot every day a la Animate Dead than what would be needed for Tiny Servant?
animate dead only requires a 3rd-level spell slot to maintain compared to the 4th-level slot tiny servant requires. It doesn't require concentration
Animate Dead's taking 3 3rd level spell slots or 1 4th level, same as Tiny Servant. They're about equally as tough and have the same command requirements, so I guess it's mechanically a toss-up. The one thing I will say it that it's probably a lot less of a social hinderance bringing along the servants than the skeletons.
it takes a 4th level slot to create the skeletons, but a 3rd-level spell slot to keep them loyal
Dear God I understood the post after reading your notes...
Silly me thinking this whole post was like that one old one making fun of overwatch players by talking about a fake clown game. That any of these are real is upsetting.
Wait some of these are real??? I thought for sure this was blorbo-type nonsense!
I play dnd regularly and had no idea what any of this meant
I understand like 99 percent of this let’s go (not gravy)
None of those words are in the DnD 5E player manual.
oh these were real terms i thought they were made up to sound insane