Andy Brown's page

I'm now inclined to search the breaking point of spider silk.

A dragline silk's tensile strength is comparable to that of high-grade alloy steel (450−2000 MPa),and about half as strong as aramid filaments, such as Twaron or Kevlar (3000 MPa).

they didn't want the armed vs unarmed debate to influence the data too much.

Not sure that worked, given all the "what about unarmed?" comments

I wonder why is it still called a draft when it is the final version?

Probably because of that thing about updating the copyright registration number

The declaration wasn't the problem, the missed stumping, several dropped catches and too many no balls were the problems.
Should have picked a wicket keeper.

You cast most touch spells using your hands. You hold the charge as long as you don't touch anything. If you that it is held in your body, well you cannot hold the charge because you are touching the ground, so the only way it can work is if you hold the charge in your hand.

The rules originally refered to "unarmed strike" as just a single limb, not every limb. That was changed via FAQ of Magic Fang.

This FAQ?

I had a lot of fun with a Corsair Fighter, semi-optimised for mobility and crit-fishing; got a lot of use out of cleave when fighting on ships

The Ranged Trip feat says "any ranged weapon at a -2 penalty", so that'd have to be applied on top of the -2 for scatter, otherwise I don't see why not

Don't expect an AI GM to need to be too strict. I'm currently in preproduction on a game that will have a very flexible ability to run modules. The flexibility achievable just by me alone is high. I can't imagine what a big studio could achieve if they actually tried. BTW, if you want to see such a game made faster and better, I'm always looking for help.

I played a scenario once where we concentrated so hard on one little detail from the briefing that we got to 4 hours without even hitting the first scripted encounter, with the GM making stuff up on the fly and the players enjoying themselves immensely.

Is Mastodon taking off? I thought it had a slight bump and then kinda petered out.

108,000 new users in the last week, apparently (now >9 million users)

There were 2 massive (10K+ new users per hour) influxes at the end of last year, so yeah it has slowed down a bit.

It's a bit harder to find your place in the fediverse at first, but it's way nicer than twitter, because of the way the server instances can control who they connect to.

For the folks in this thread, it's likely to be orders of magnitude better

I just love how queer the RPG community is and it felt nice to know that I wasn't alone.

*waves* from Mastodon

Over on social media there's a discussion of the new Clue game cover image, that includes several people talking about this OGL change

actually, I suppose Disney would have incentive to sue Hasbro into tiny tiny pieces regardless of the actual issue at hand, so who knows.

At which point Hasbro say to Disney "here's a royalty free licence for you to keep selling your stuff", which Disney accept while Hasbro go after everybody else.

Totally dumb, half-asleep thought:
Wasn't there a big thing a while back about Hollywood stars playing D&D?
How could that be turned into "do you really want to be connected with this?"

Paladin of which deity?

Also, if you scroll down to Touch spells in combat section of this page

Touching an opponent with a touch spell is considered to be an armed attack and therefore does not provoke attacks of opportunity

and

Charge: If you don’t discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the charge indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round.

and

Alternatively, you may make a normal unarmed attack (or an attack with a natural weapon) while holding a charge. In this case, you aren’t considered armed and you provoke attacks of opportunity as normal for the attack

So the spell attack in round 2

There's a FAQ that actually covers this, including holding a charged spell

Diego Rossi wrote:

Senko wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

The invisible buffer can take a 5' step after casting a

So lob a vial of glitterdust

Vial of Glitterdust?

I was thinking about alchemists and their infusions, not sure if they get that spell but it seems how you'd use it.

For an alchemist, See Invisibilty + a Smog pellet is the way to go

Hand axes aren't in the Close Weapon group, so you're not going to get the benefit of Brawler's Flurry.

A Slayer would let you grab the Ranger's Two-Weapon Combat Style as Talents, so you'd get your best combat efficiency that way, leaving other Feat selections to pick up Improved Trip, Disarm, etc.
You also get access to Rogue Talents for a whole load of different things, and more skill points (and class skills) for out of combat utility.

At low levels, Brawler's Cunning and Martial Flexibility might factor in if you're after a bigger choice of feats and more utility from swapping them around a bit.

Andy Brown wrote:

ntgtoowc wrote:

my GM's stance is that the nat 20 is an attack roll, and he knows that the parry is also an attack roll- he just says my attack roll, regardless of the result, cannot beat any nat 20.

So your parry roll is an attack roll, and a nat 20 on an attack roll is unbeatable...

What happens if you roll a nat 20 on the parry?

Since the result of your parry is what matters, a parry cannot crit- a natural 20 doesn't change the outcome. We (my GM and I) both agree on this. The issue came when I asked what happens if my result is higher than an enemy's, when said enemy rolled a natural 20. Despite my result being higher, I cannot parry a 20.

I see. I asked because of the auto-success, not the critical threat.

Personally, I'd never bother with a swashbuckler with that GM (and if this was dropped on me part-way through a game, after I'd gone swashbuckler, I'd not be happy).

my GM's stance is that the nat 20 is an attack roll, and he knows that the parry is also an attack roll- he just says my attack roll, regardless of the result, cannot beat any nat 20.

So your parry roll is an attack roll, and a nat 20 on an attack roll is unbeatable...

Anyone still using this to find Players?

I've moved back to the Huntingdon/Alconbury/Peterborough/Cambridge area and I was wondering if anyone is looking for Players for PathFinder or even D&D...

Let me know if anyone is still interested in making contact and building/reinforcing a Team in the area!

Slainte!

Ronan

There's still a few of us in the area, though there's not much going on (in person) at the moment

Presumably the new Announcements channel will only allow staff to start threads, replacing two forums where non-staff can start threads, and therefore pushing some recent discussions to the off-topic forum where they can be more easily ignored by Paizo?

Replying to myself as I realised the General Discussion forum is still there; rest of the comment still stands though

Presumably the new Announcements channel will only allow staff to start threads, replacing two forums where non-staff can start threads, and therefore pushing some recent discussions to the off-topic forum where they can be more easily ignored by Paizo?

More that 'if certain words get flagged because they are slurs', then folks will get more creative with their slurs/subtlety.

If that makes any sense?

Any word can be a swear-word/slur given the right context (or intonation, if spoken). If words get banned, then other words will be used (history proves this) until those are also banned.

Someone did suggest "Suspended until X" for temporary ones, but I'd assume the notice would go away once the suspension ended.

That was later, I'm not going to use it as an escape clause

I'd get it if we were discussing a tag for, like, "this user has been moderated x times"

I'm going to acknowledge that I somehow got the impression that a tag for a temp ban was being suggested as well as for effectively deactivated accounts.

I still think it's a bad idea and hiding the accounts would be better, but if the system makes putting up text possible and checking the suspension flag to hide the account impossible, then it's another reason to modernise (and disconnect the forums and the store)

Maybe something like removing the original posts but letting replies that don't violate ToS stay up with the banned tag on the OP being referenced ?

Problem there is that, as far as I can tell, quoting is purely a textual thing with no actual reference back to the quoted user, so adding the tag to each quote would be a manual job

I think calling Andy a chud is extremely uncalled for, but I also think the comparison was enormously inappropriate to the point of being disrespectful.

Thanks for that. I'll hold my hand up and say I could have worded my disagreement in a less inflammatory way. I'm not convinced it would have stopped the pile-on for disagreeing though.

Every single website I've ever been to labels posters who've been banned.

And places I've been have deleted the account. Different experiences, or maybe a generational change.

How could a simple "banned" marker possibly lead to toxicity towards an unpleasant poster?

I've been around long enough to see choice of font lead to toxicity...

Deleting the account isn't just technically difficult and legally dubious--it has an unpleasant side effect of sweeping things under the rug.

I'll give you that as a side effect, but it's about the same as deleting offensive posts when it comes to sweeping stuff under the rug.

More seriously, it also means the mods have to delete every single post from that user. Imagine if you got banned, and the mods had to delete every single post you'd ever made, and modify every thread you'd ever posted in to ensure it remained legible. Logistically, the labor alone makes it infeasible.

Deleting all of a user's posts should be one simple database command (alternatively it ought to be possible to use a simple command to change the text of the posts to indicate the user has been banned). Again I'm assuming stuff about the website backend which may not be true.

Adding and indicator requires no changes to the software, just adding a label to an account which the existing forum software is very capable of doing (this already happens with people with subscriptions and mods/staff/contributors).

Hiding accounts isn't something the current software can do and would require upgrading to new software which is very expensive and time consuming.

You obviously know more about the current software than I do

Deleting accounts would cut these people off from products they have purchased and their ability to purchase future products, which has been deemed too punitive (people are being kicked off the forums for the safety of others, not as a punishment).

I disagree with that decision too; I see it as putting company profits ahead of forum safety

I also wouldn't put it past some people to try to get a temp ban just to pick up the marker as a badge to show how clever they are

Man, it sure seemed like I was getting through, but I guess not.

They probably can't hear you over the whistling

When someone points me in the direction of something inappropriate and inflammatory, I believe them.

The problem here is that the really inappropriate stuff (and the people posting it) was removed a while back (before your first post on the boards), so it's a bit difficult to show it to you. Which is convenient for your decision to ignore the people who have been targeted by it

I definitely think "offensive/insulting" should come back

Other games that have surprisingly good representation for gender diversity and disabilities: Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite. They don't even do the "masculine/feminine" body type thing, it's just "body type A" and "body type B." Voices aren't tied to either one, and neither are pronouns.

Prosthetics are just part of the character creation process, instead of being something you have to go digging for or unlock.

I think the only complaints I've seen about Horizon is the lack of larger body types and beards. And somebody pointing out that the full-body outfits replace prosthetic limbs with biological ones.

You also get to pick from a long list of names (again no separation by gender) to be used when your character is referenced by name (rather than just as "the superstar driver")

Now, if they'd just fix the bugs...

Also, "being trans" can be a choice in certain respects, for certain people

I'm going to disagree there; being open about it is a choice, as is burying it so far deep inside that nobody else ever knows, but being trans is just how you are

you were simply contributing to the thread and you got bullied

That's a very delicate definition of bullying.

didn't we have this discussion already?

Andy Brown wrote:

NECR0G1ANT wrote:

The Additional Resources page has the following:

Quote:

Only the 2nd printing of this book or the 1st printing augmented by the current errata (released 7/21/11) are legal for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

Everything in this book is legal for play with the following exceptions: … slaves are not legal for play.

So owning slaves in society was banned sometime between July 2011 and April 2019, and a less recent AR file would pull that second date forward.

earliest AR I can access right now (might have an older one somewhere) is July 16, and it has the same text

Do you mean July 2016? That predates the 9-00, the scenario the freelances took issue with.

I did. And I've now been back through stuff on my PC (rather than tablet), and the June 2016 AR is where the text was added, as follows

As of June 10, 2016, slaves are no longer available for purchase.

The Additional Resources page has the following:

Quote:

Only the 2nd printing of this book or the 1st printing augmented by the current errata (released 7/21/11) are legal for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

Everything in this book is legal for play with the following exceptions: … slaves are not legal for play.

So owning slaves in society was banned sometime between July 2011 and April 2019, and a less recent AR file would pull that second date forward.

earliest AR I can access right now (might have an older one somewhere) is July 16, and it has the same text

some day I'll get round to putting my "it's not the words that are the problem" rant somewhere I can link to for situations like this

I still don't think I can personally tell a bigot that they are a bigot -- that's my personal hangup. I am more likely to post on a terrible post: "Flagged. Hate has no home here."

That's possibly because you're nicer than some of us (me, for instance). :)

Everybody needs to find a level of response that they're comfortable with, and a simple response like that is better than no response if you want to show visible support.

You've been one of the clearest voices calling for *sensible* responses, and trying to keep the forums welcoming, while also being a lot nicer than many when somebody suggests you're not as blunt as the rest of us. (which brings me back to my first point about niceness :))

One of my favorite erotica typoes: swapping "stroked" and "storked".

And the sort of thing that's really hard to spot in your own writing.

Some people see bold as shouting, some people see ot as emphasis, or grammar, depending on how your internet patois developed.

And when. Some of us started before all this fancy formatting stuff; I still use * and / for bold and italic emphasis.

I generally think it's best not to assume people are shouting if you see bold, it could be lots of things. The internet is a hodge podge of micro cultural pidgins.

Yeah, this.

rules for rolling the ability scores are included as an alternative, but the idea is that you end up with scores that match your background (whether you consider that a good thing or not is a different question), although I suspect a lot of people just end up with a background that matches the scores they want, and then ignore it.

The other thing is that in PF2 that 5% makes a *big* difference, because the math is tighter, and there are fewer ways of gaining a +1 to a roll.

I'm unable to view birdsite due to PTSD. What's going on?

Very, very, brief summary is that customer service and community management are very different skill sets, with CS focussing on solving problems for individual customers, and CM focussing on building the whole community in a positive way and also needing to learn how to spot the bad actors.

[ninja'd again]

Sometimes you're not trying to convince the troll, and you're not really even posting for the troll to see it; sometimes you're posting so anybody else watching sees it, to show that what's been posted isn't acceptable, and to show support for the (other) targets of the trolling.

You'll almost never convince the troll to change their mind, but sometimes you'll convince a lurker to change theirs.

You may be on the other side of the world but Heather and Raychel and Logan are on west coast USA time, locking threads that got a substantial amount of flags until they could get back in the next work day to clear them out was the norm, everything running rampant after the firing of Sara Marie and Diego quitting was the exception.

Funny how that worked out.

And as an action taken where necessary to stop things getting worse, it's fine.

Closing the forum "for the night" is everything BUT inclusive, considering that most of the world is in completely different time zones. Except for violence, it's hard to imagine more discriminatory action than making some people unable to discuss meaningful topic.

Full agreement with this.

it will also be quite useful after the collapse of civilisation :)

I am troubled by the concept of calling other forumites bigots. I can see calling out their actions or posts as bigoted, but...

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I don't see the problem with calling it a water fowl.

And hey, you're correct that I may be coming from a privileged enough background where I can see something nasty and just flag it and move on.

And I may be a bit on edge because my national broadcasting company has just platformed a transphobe who then went on to call for all trans women to be lynched (and named some specific people who should be first).

And I'm concentrating on transphobia here, because that's what we're currently seeing more of, rather than most other bigotry