The Gaming Den

Crimson Lancer wrote:My apologies for being so blunt, but what's the point of you cursing all the time? That's really the main reason I avoided this place when P_R originally invited me; how can one possibly achieve mature conversation when a common response in any disagreement is, "Your opinion sucks donkeycock"? That's incredibly immature, and results in utter failure when used in any reasonable discourse.

Welcome to the Den.

More seriously, swearing is fine here. Partly because most of us hate censorship. Partly because Lago, for example, comes up with some really funny phrases that way. And a big chunk of it is that a correct post + lots of swearing is still a correct post. OTOH a lack of swearing does not imply correctness or even a lack of venom.

Crimson Lancer wrote:how can one possibly achieve mature conversation when a common response in any disagreement is, "Your opinion sucks donkeycock"? That's incredibly immature, and results in utter failure when used in any reasonable discourse.

It takes a little adjustment, but in a way I find it refreshing to have people say what they think, instead of sugarcoating their poisoned words. Case in point:

Crimson Lancer wrote:My apologies for being so blunt, but what's the point of you cursing all the time?

Are you seriously sorry you are going to be blunt? If so, why don't you do something else instead? That is a harmless example, but there are other things which seriously bug me. When people tell me "well, you are entitled to your opinion of course" that is just a polite way of saying "fuck you, I don't like what you said, but I won't tell you why". And when I say "polite" I mean "dishonest".

So if the random curses and insults on this board bug you I suggest taking this handy chart:

Fuck you! - I don't like the way you talk.
Fuck that shit! - Your idea is bad.
Are you retarded? - How could you think this a good idea?
Stop lying, asswipe! - You are actively trying to distort facts.

Note that only the last entry is a serious insult. 99% of the shit that gets flung here is a variation of "come on, you can do better than this" when you think about it. But actually accusing someone of willingly and actively misleading others, that's serious.

however, if you drastically reduce the cost on Knock, why would anyone take the Thievery Skill?

Because Knock is already worse than the Thievery skill. Knock lets you spend 10 minutes to make a skill roll at +5. With Thievery, you could Take 20, spend two minutes, and (effectively) make the roll at +10. And it costs a healing surge. Really, the only reason to use Knock is if no-one in your party has Thievery.

And that goes for the other rituals as well. Scrying doesn't replace normal information gathering, because it lasts only a few seconds and takes a lot longer to do. Even if it were free, you'd still only have like a 2% chance of catching the target doing anything interesting.

And most rituals aren't even competing with skills. Last time I checked, "Make a portal to a teleportation circle" wasn't something covered by a skill.

But guys, it's totally ok to have a bunch of shit that probably will never get used and is just wasting space because they aren't SUPPOSED to be useful, they're supposed to be a LAST RESORT. This isn't 3.x and its WIN spells!

Ice9 wrote:Because Knock is already worse than the Thievery skill. Knock lets you spend 10 minutes to make a skill roll at +5. With Thievery, you could Take 20, spend two minutes, and (effectively) make the roll at +10. And it costs a healing surge. Really, the only reason to use Knock is if no-one in your party has Thievery.

Even then you're better off just breaking the door down. And by that I mean that your wizard could just punch it down in a faster amount of time than it would take to cast knock. Your fighter could break it down in like 2-3 rounds.

Its better than burning resources and sitting outside the door for 10 minutes.

I can't honestly think of a single situation where you'd want to use knock.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:

Ice9 wrote:Because Knock is already worse than the Thievery skill. Knock lets you spend 10 minutes to make a skill roll at +5. With Thievery, you could Take 20, spend two minutes, and (effectively) make the roll at +10. And it costs a healing surge. Really, the only reason to use Knock is if no-one in your party has Thievery.

Even then you're better off just breaking the door down. And by that I mean that your wizard could just punch it down in a faster amount of time than it would take to cast knock. Your fighter could break it down in like 2-3 rounds.

Its better than burning resources and sitting outside the door for 10 minutes.

I can't honestly think of a single situation where you'd want to use knock.

That's because you forgot you're playing a bad MMO. You need the Blue Key to open the Blue Door.

Actually, that was seriously the answer I got in a thread about the lack of hardness making everything as easily destroyed as styrofoam - "The DM should just rule you can't damage it".

Ice9 wrote:Actually, that was seriously the answer I got in a thread about the lack of hardness making everything as easily destroyed as styrofoam - "The DM should just rule you can't damage it".

I got the same thing. They're dogmatic drivel spammers, what do you expect?

If I was going to fix rituals, I would do something like:

1) Remove Rituals and Ritual Casting
2) Classes that would have started with Ritual Caster get a free replacement Feat.

Ice9 wrote:Actually, that was seriously the answer I got in a thread about the lack of hardness making everything as easily destroyed as styrofoam - "The DM should just rule you can't damage it".

Yeah, the 4E object damage rules are horribly broken. Even worse so than the 3.5 rules. At least in 3.5 a door or wall would hold something for awhile. In 4E, you can pretty much tear through anything in a round.