Jameson Quinn
@voter.bsky.social
He/him. Guatemala. en, es, fr
Expertise: stats, voting methods
Interests: US & Guatemalan politics, causal inference, dark matter, sf, democracy, a"i"/ml, cancer, -omics, linguistics, justice, people geeking the fuck out
Expertise: stats, voting methods
Interests: US & Guatemalan politics, causal inference, dark matter, sf, democracy, a"i"/ml, cancer, -omics, linguistics, justice, people geeking the fuck out
Anything about how Teslas have the worst safety record of any car company?
How about all the crappy builds and recalls?
How about how they make you look like a Nazi?
How about all the crappy builds and recalls?
How about how they make you look like a Nazi?
March 23, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Anything about how Teslas have the worst safety record of any car company?
How about all the crappy builds and recalls?
How about how they make you look like a Nazi?
How about all the crappy builds and recalls?
How about how they make you look like a Nazi?
I posted something pro-AOC the other day and immediately got three of them. The ick. Makes you regret agreeing with them even when it's actually the other way around.
March 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
I posted something pro-AOC the other day and immediately got three of them. The ick. Makes you regret agreeing with them even when it's actually the other way around.
I think I've done a pretty good job here balancing all of this out. I think these rules will, in practice, narrow the martial/caster gap versus vanilla #5r. But it was a struggle, and to some extent, I let the drive for simplicity win over the drive for balance.
March 22, 2025 at 9:06 PM
I think I've done a pretty good job here balancing all of this out. I think these rules will, in practice, narrow the martial/caster gap versus vanilla #5r. But it was a struggle, and to some extent, I let the drive for simplicity win over the drive for balance.
But the very name "hit dice" implies that, when spent on nonmagical healing, they are an essentially linear resource. Meanwhile, if I don't want to add complex math and tables of spell points per slot level, the design constraints push spell slot recovery to be more quadratic.
March 22, 2025 at 9:03 PM
But the very name "hit dice" implies that, when spent on nonmagical healing, they are an essentially linear resource. Meanwhile, if I don't want to add complex math and tables of spell points per slot level, the design constraints push spell slot recovery to be more quadratic.
I also wanted to add as little extra complexity as possible; and in particular, not to add any new resources to track. That meant using the existing "recovery" resource, hit dice.
March 22, 2025 at 9:01 PM
I also wanted to add as little extra complexity as possible; and in particular, not to add any new resources to track. That meant using the existing "recovery" resource, hit dice.
In designing this homebrew, I wanted it to "slow down the pace, but keep the basic feel". In particular, I didn't want the amount of time it takes a spellcaster to recover their resources to grow quadratically with level; the person playing a wizard should never be saying "let's go rest for a month"
March 22, 2025 at 9:00 PM
In designing this homebrew, I wanted it to "slow down the pace, but keep the basic feel". In particular, I didn't want the amount of time it takes a spellcaster to recover their resources to grow quadratically with level; the person playing a wizard should never be saying "let's go rest for a month"
This is where my homebrew comes in. If you don't recover all your spell slots overnight, but merely some of them, the burden on the DM to provide a story with multiple challenging battles every day is reduced.
Campaign Pace (
These rules slow down recovery and make it less “all or nothing”. That means that, for instance, resources spent in a single-encounter travel day can still matter the next day when you arrive. They al...
homebrewery.naturalcrit.com
March 22, 2025 at 8:56 PM
This is where my homebrew comes in. If you don't recover all your spell slots overnight, but merely some of them, the burden on the DM to provide a story with multiple challenging battles every day is reduced.
In order to keep balance, then, a DM must design punishing "adventuring days" with lots of battles to drain spell slots — so that the martial characters' ability to "just keep bonking" shines through.
But in the 2024 revision of the rules, the "adventuring day" guidance was dropped.
But in the 2024 revision of the rules, the "adventuring day" guidance was dropped.
March 22, 2025 at 8:55 PM
In order to keep balance, then, a DM must design punishing "adventuring days" with lots of battles to drain spell slots — so that the martial characters' ability to "just keep bonking" shines through.
But in the 2024 revision of the rules, the "adventuring day" guidance was dropped.
But in the 2024 revision of the rules, the "adventuring day" guidance was dropped.
And front-loading this power into "nova rounds" early in a battle makes them act like "more goblins", getting the advantage of the inherent quadratic-ness of group battles.
March 22, 2025 at 8:53 PM
And front-loading this power into "nova rounds" early in a battle makes them act like "more goblins", getting the advantage of the inherent quadratic-ness of group battles.
So if you converted spell-slots to an undifferentiated pool of "spell points" (there are optional rules for this), and graphed the total spell points versus level, it would still be roughly linear.
But! As a spellcaster levels up, they're more and more able to front-load this power.
But! As a spellcaster levels up, they're more and more able to front-load this power.
March 22, 2025 at 8:51 PM
So if you converted spell-slots to an undifferentiated pool of "spell points" (there are optional rules for this), and graphed the total spell points versus level, it would still be roughly linear.
But! As a spellcaster levels up, they're more and more able to front-load this power.
But! As a spellcaster levels up, they're more and more able to front-load this power.
And the growth in overall power from spell slots is designed to be semi-linear. When leveling up, lower-level characters gain multiple lower-level slots; mid-level ones gain one mid-level slot; and higher-level ones gain just one slot every other level.
March 22, 2025 at 8:48 PM
And the growth in overall power from spell slots is designed to be semi-linear. When leveling up, lower-level characters gain multiple lower-level slots; mid-level ones gain one mid-level slot; and higher-level ones gain just one slot every other level.
The inherent tradeoff in #5e's design is supposed to be "spell slots"; that is to say, spellcasters have a limited reserve of power, while non-caster martials can keep bonking all day.
March 22, 2025 at 8:46 PM
The inherent tradeoff in #5e's design is supposed to be "spell slots"; that is to say, spellcasters have a limited reserve of power, while non-caster martials can keep bonking all day.
In practice, this means that the most powerful spells can usually do more damage in one turn than even the most powerful martial characters. (This may not always hold if you optimize the martials obsessively; let's assume we're working with "vanilla" not-heavily-optimized characters.)
March 22, 2025 at 8:43 PM
In practice, this means that the most powerful spells can usually do more damage in one turn than even the most powerful martial characters. (This may not always hold if you optimize the martials obsessively; let's assume we're working with "vanilla" not-heavily-optimized characters.)
But let's ignore that quadratic-ness, and call the fighter "linear".
In DnD, you want magic to feel magical; to have it be possible magically to (at the cost of spending finite magic power) accomplish things mere physical training can't.
In DnD, you want magic to feel magical; to have it be possible magically to (at the cost of spending finite magic power) accomplish things mere physical training can't.
March 22, 2025 at 8:40 PM
But let's ignore that quadratic-ness, and call the fighter "linear".
In DnD, you want magic to feel magical; to have it be possible magically to (at the cost of spending finite magic power) accomplish things mere physical training can't.
In DnD, you want magic to feel magical; to have it be possible magically to (at the cost of spending finite magic power) accomplish things mere physical training can't.
In DnD, as a fighter levels up, they have more hit points and do more damage — and each of these growth curves tends to be roughly linear. But if you measure in "number of weak enemies they can face and win", even this "linear" growth is already a bit quadratic, for the reasons above.
March 22, 2025 at 8:36 PM
In DnD, as a fighter levels up, they have more hit points and do more damage — and each of these growth curves tends to be roughly linear. But if you measure in "number of weak enemies they can face and win", even this "linear" growth is already a bit quadratic, for the reasons above.
Obviously, there are some underlying assumptions. For this to be true, both sides would have to (be able to) "concentrate their fire" to efficiently kill enemies and remove them from the fight, rather than spreading it out to merely wound enemies.
March 22, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Obviously, there are some underlying assumptions. For this to be true, both sides would have to (be able to) "concentrate their fire" to efficiently kill enemies and remove them from the fight, rather than spreading it out to merely wound enemies.
This means that, if a pack of 50 goblins fights a pack of 40, the larger pack will tend to win with about 30 survivors (like a 3-4-5 triangle), not 10 survivors (with casualties a linear 1-for-1 on either side).
(This is not a fact just about DnD, but a general principle of combined forces.)
(This is not a fact just about DnD, but a general principle of combined forces.)
March 22, 2025 at 8:31 PM
This means that, if a pack of 50 goblins fights a pack of 40, the larger pack will tend to win with about 30 survivors (like a 3-4-5 triangle), not 10 survivors (with casualties a linear 1-for-1 on either side).
(This is not a fact just about DnD, but a general principle of combined forces.)
(This is not a fact just about DnD, but a general principle of combined forces.)
In a certain sense, even this simple monster is already quadratic. Say you have 10 goblins fighting a powerful but slow monster that can kill one of them each round. The first round, they'll attack the enemy 10 times; then 9; then 8; etc. The total number of attacks is (n²+n)/2; already quadratic.
March 22, 2025 at 8:27 PM
In a certain sense, even this simple monster is already quadratic. Say you have 10 goblins fighting a powerful but slow monster that can kill one of them each round. The first round, they'll attack the enemy 10 times; then 9; then 8; etc. The total number of attacks is (n²+n)/2; already quadratic.
Before I delve into the problem, there's a brief detour: actually, everything is quadratic.
Imagine the most boring DnD statblock you can; say, a goblin. It has a certain number of hit points, and it can bonk others to reduce their hit points.
Imagine the most boring DnD statblock you can; say, a goblin. It has a certain number of hit points, and it can bonk others to reduce their hit points.
March 22, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Before I delve into the problem, there's a brief detour: actually, everything is quadratic.
Imagine the most boring DnD statblock you can; say, a goblin. It has a certain number of hit points, and it can bonk others to reduce their hit points.
Imagine the most boring DnD statblock you can; say, a goblin. It has a certain number of hit points, and it can bonk others to reduce their hit points.