Grrl Power – Dabbler’s Science Corner #4
I personally wouldn’t deal with any company that offered a la carte insurance on my body. If the core function of their business isn’t “we keep your body completely safe and healthy while you enjoy our rental bio-surrogates” then you may as well just stick your head under one of those crushing machines that did in the original Terminator and also André Delambre. (I’d leave André as an obscure reference, but it would take you 2 seconds on google to discover that’s the name of the scientist from the 1958 The Fly movie.) I mean, a company that dicks you around on insurance like that and your body dies while a copy of your mind is occupying one of their rental bodies, you KNOW they’ve got some rider in page 87 of their T&C that says they can keep charging you the rental rates for the rest of your life, while the death of your body will be attributed to “unforeseen acts of God” and no legal action can be brought against the company and the CEO probably is allowed to fuck your technical widow against her objections because you also signed up for Disney+ when you rented the body.
If you can’t tell, I might be a bit of a cynic and pessimist when it comes to totally unregulated capitalism.
But speaking of renting alien bodies, I think that’s something I could be talked into just to eat alien cuisine that’s either wildly toxic to humans or it all just tastes like cilantro – and that assumes you have the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap. I mean, it doesn’t taste like soap to me, it tastes like parsley. Like bitter grass. It’s weird, I think olives are disgusting, but I love capers, and my wife is the opposite. They seem like they’re not too far unrelated, but I’ll load up piccata or anything with greek dressing on it with capers, and the smell of olives makes me gag. It’d be awesome to live in a world where we could take a pill and flip certain genes on and off so we could make all the food taste good. And also cure Alzheimer’s and whatever. But mostly the food. Oh, and also the ability to synthesize Vitamin C since we used to be able to do that back when we were still more monkey adjacent. And while we’re at it, why not all the other vitamins we can’t synthesize? And make us all tetrachromats and while we’re at it I could use a prehensile tail when I’m carrying groceries…
Or we could invent Avatar technology and live in semi-disposable bespoke bodies.
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Oh, right, I was going to tell you about Fray, and how I might have broken something. So, let me start off by saying that some of this wouldn’t be possible if the GM I’m playing with wasn’t real generous with the loot. We have access to most everything in the books, assuming we can afford it, but some of the dudes we fight have incredible equipment, so we sell it off and buy up what we need. Fray is an Ifrit monk – Ifrits actually don’t make great monks because they get +2 Dex and Cha, and –2 Wisdom. The Dex is nice of course, but the Cha doesn’t do much for monks except in a few cases, and the -2 to Wis is pretty bad. But I didn’t care. I thought she’d look cool with dark skin and glowing orange hair. Ifrit get 5 points of energy immunity against fire, which I didn’t know when I picked her race, but that makes sense. I also didn’t know they get an Ifrit racial ability with a few options, I think the default is that they can actually heal up to 5 points of health from fire in a round. There’s another option that gives them bonuses to fire type magic spells, which didn’t matter for my monk, but weirdly, there’s also an option for them to cast Enlarge Person on themselves once a day. That sounded cool to me, so I went with that. Inspired by the kind of broken Tavern Brawler monk from Baldur’s Gate 3, I went with a strength build, even though I knew the TB feat doesn’t exist in Pathfinder. She started off with 18 Str, and every 4 levels you get a point to spend on attributes, so currently she’s running with 20 Str. On top of that, she has (and remember about the loot generous DM) a Belt of Physical Perfection, which gives her +6 to Str, Dex and Con. She also has an Amulet of Mighty Fists, which gives her a +5 to hit and damage. It has an effect on it called Brilliant Energy which basically allows weapons to pass through and ignore armor. So Fray has to roll against enemies’ Touch AC, not their Armored AC. But wait, it gets worse. There’s a Feat called Power Attack which gives, at her current level a -2 to hit, but a +4 to damage, AND here’s the kicker. There’s a spell that can enchanted into an item called “Strong Jaw” which allows natural weapons to hit as if they were two size categories larger. It’s really designed so that some Druid’s owl or fox familiar can actually dish out some reasonable damage in a fight, but a Monks bare fists are indeed natural weapons.
To cut to the chase, a monk at her level can use Flurry of Blows to hit up to 4 times a round. If you spend a Ki point, you can add an additional Blow, and if the Monk or their party is under a haste effect, like from Blessing of Fervor (and we have a cleric who always casts it at the start of combat) then she can get a 6th attack roll in. Also we have a Bard that sings their Inspire Courage song, which gives +3 to hit and damage.
So, with all that, she does 20 points of damage per strike from bonus damage alone. If she activates Strong Jaw and Enlarge Person, she’s attacking as if she were 3 size categories larger, (Gargantuan) and if she lands all six attacks, (remember she’s targeting Touch AC, and is coming in with +22/+22/+22/+22/+17/+17 bonus to hit) she does 120 damage PLUS 6D6 per strike, or 36D6. In other words, she’d average about 240 points of damage a round. At level 10.
While I am an egregious min/maxer, this would clearly make the game less fun for the other players, some of whom do have pretty impressive builds and all of whom have top-tier gear, but the GM would have to throw a few enemies per encounter at us with like 500 hit points, or wrap everyone in triple stone-skin spells, or make their Touch AC 35 or something.
The reason I think something is broken in Herolab (which calculates all this stuff for you, as Pathfinder is a little more crunchy than D&D) is that at normal size, I should be doing 2D6 per hit. And if you told me to adjust the damage for going up a size category, I would assume that the progression from 2D6 would be 2D8 for Large, then 3D6 for Huge, and 3D8 for Gargantuan. But according to Herolab, when I add just the adjustment for Enlarge Person, the damage goes to 3D6, and if I add just the adjustment for Strong Jaw, the damage goes to 4D6, and if I add both, it jumps not to 5D6, but to 6D6 for some reason.
So, anyway, I thought I’d share that with you guys as I found it very amusing. I basically managed to replicate the damage output of a BG3 Tavern Brawler in Pathfinder 1st edition. Obviously I’d talk with the GM about those numbers and probably wind up rolling 3D8 since I don’t want to make the game a drag for all the other players. But the +20 to Damage from strength, Bard Song, Power Attack and my Amulet is staying!
Oh! And I found the perfect Deity for Fray. Kurgess, the god of Strength. Apparently worshiping him involves lifting weights and gives some bonus to encumbrance or lifting capacity if you “meditate” while doing squats with an anchor over your head. In my mind all sermons in Kurgess’s church (i.e., muscle beach) start off with “Well let me tell you something, brother! The only thing you can rely on in this world is the strength of your own arms…” all done in Macho Man’s voice, while the pastor enacts various bodybuilding poses.
Feel free to share your sick, game breaking builds. FYI, Maxima basically exists because I figured out a honey of a ‘sploit in the Champions tabletop game.
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Dabbler went somewhere tropical, in a very small bikini. As you might guess, it doesn’t stay on for long, which of course, you can see over at Patreon. Also she has an incident with “lotion,” and there’s a bonus comic page as well.
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TLDR; Party’s monk had so many attacks per round, the player had a tiny spreadsheet prepared before each session.
Our DM is permissive regarding bending the rules in favour of flavour. I think this was Pathfinder, but could’ve been D&D.
Our party has a Monk who is dual-wielding hasted weapons (IE. they are each imbued with Speed).
The rules are not 100% clear on this, so we ended up using homebrew stuff. It was crazy (but fun).
The Monk’s level is Seven (7), and he is not hasted in any other way/s.
The weapons are Nunchaku (IE. a ‘Monk weapon’), and both have the quality of Speed.
Where the rulebook says “a bonus action”, we went with “OK, so not ‘the only bonus action'”.
Which led to the Monk’s turn having…
1. 1st attack with left-hand weapon (‘of speed’, granting a bonus attack with that weapon), granting a bonus Unarmed attack
2. 2nd attack with left-hand weapon
3. Unarmed attack
4. 1st attack with right-hand weapon (‘of speed’, granting a bonus attack with that weapon), granting a bonus Unarmed attack
5. 2nd attack with left-hand weapon
6. Unarmed attack (this was perhaps the most argued-over action, but the DM eventually hand-waved it as ok)
So, yeah, there are obvious liberties, and some less so, that were taken, but it worked out… cinematically, you might say.
The basic argument was that dual-wielding is currently a total waste for monks. Add to that the question ‘what is the point of magical speed if you only get one extra action (ie. the attack), and that in place of any other action?’
Not only but also, each weapon was enchanted with a damage type, namely Acid and Thunder.
There was a sub-rule which gave the 2nd attacks a to-hit penalty.
So, a regular attack turn included the six attack rolls (two sets of three different bonuses to hit), followed by any damage rolls, including differences for saves vs enchanted damage.
With so many die-rolls required, at the start of each session the Monk’s player pre-rolled a table of attacks and possible damages.
This table included six sets of attacks, so in a combat round, at the start of their turn, the player would roll a d6, thus randomly selecting a set of attack rolls.
It was crazy, but fun, and it worked out well.
Until the Lvl 14 Monk was disintegrated by a Red Wizard of Thay.
:P
Presumably the Unarmed Attacks were kicks, Since he was dual wielding?
Monk attacks include but are not limited to: Fists, Elbows, Headbutts, Shoulder Tackles, Knees, Kicks, Hips, and for the ultimate humiliation of the target… either front or back depending on gender.
Some call the attack the Swing of Doom. Some call it Hippy Shake. Few call it the Fart Cannon. It is still technically all cannon for a monk and yes you can flurry of blows.
Yes… You can Blanka Cannon Ball Charge with a good enough jump check.
You can also go full Jacky Chan and tumble while attacking thru, over, around, under, and possibly within. Only has happened one time fighting a Dullahan, wasn’t me, and technically became a grapple war? Yeah… welcome to can’t hit the target or will damage monk more than target, can’t aoe as it will also hit the monk, can’t use ranged because you guessed it… miss and it hits the monk. Hold person won’t work as it’s not technically a person but a monster. We had to wrestle the armor off of her and THEN smash it to pieces the whole time it was trying to crush her.
Min/max party was NOT READY for this. Spellcasters were useless, ranged was nerfed to using just their not high enough strength score instead of dex, and dps was hindered by their own armor. And you think Tucker’s Kobolds are evil to fight…
The Red Wizard, I’m assuming, was named Tim.
that would be the Blue wizard.
Ad. Capitalism: I live in Poland and I would not want to live in the US if they paid me. a friend’s sister moved to the US but uses every chance she gets to put in as many doctor appointments as she can when she comes visiting her family in Poland, because the health care here is included in the obligatory social security payments all employees and employers have to pay. And even private medical services are significantly more affordable. So I find what you call cynicism is just regular common reason.
You know what else the List? Shredable and flammable
The pages of The List are actually made of compressed pixie wings, and are, therefore, neither. Even sentient alien data constructs fear the awesome power of The List. Its existence cannot be denied.
They have shared bodies and minds…now to share THE LIST
A momentous occasion. The founding of the Sisterhood of the List
the *Listerhood*
Sometimes I really wish this comment section had reddit-style awards to give to winning comments…
I’ll send an honorary ninja hit squad their way.
I made a character that had four arms. (a specially created intelligent undead)
made with the explicite demand that i would only punch and not use weapons or shields for easy min max.
it did not matter.
it ended up with him snapping the neck of a large dragon in one round of unrelenting damage. DM was able to keep us and himself happy with the battles.
but i still remember the sheer amount of dice i was rolling and then telling the damage total i did to the poor dragon. which was then explained as if i grabbed its neck with one hand and then punched its spine into paste. good times.
So, Hans and Franz would be priests of Kurgess?
In case I’m dating myself:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mk1nykjnYA
There was that Pixel-Dungeon-run, where I had like 5-6 wands (low level, like +2 max)
But my armor (high level and “of potential”) would grant me recharging them all when hit and whenever I’d spend the last charge of some wand, all my wands would gain a level or two for a time.
…and I had a ring that would increase damage from any wands.
then a +7 chalice of blood that would heal me relatively fast and the unstable spellbook +10 that’d enabled me to i.e. magic map all dungeon levels, remove all curses on found items and teleported me out of reach from many enemies. It also having recharging my wands didn’t hurt either.
Don’t think I’ve used my main weapon or projectiles much in that run.
btw: wand of regrowth and wand of fire still is a fun combination
burning enemies that are rekindled all the time AND can’t move
add some poison air from another wand, just for the fun of it
Its not perfect, but with scifi there is a theory that could get around the transmission lag issue. Quantum Entanglement theory. In which two particles that are entangle with each other would act exactly the same at all times no matter how far apart they are. In theory a pair of quantum entangled particles could communicate from point a to point b with zero lag by vibrating, vibrating one end would cause the other to vibrate, and with two such pairs of entangled particles you could in theory having an outbound and inbound particle that would communicate anywhere in the universe with with zero lag, unrestricted by the speed of light or other physics.
However thats all the realm of Quantum physics and that area gets confusing fast.
this how Harem in this comic works too. My own avatars systems also use quantum entanglement to link the mind of the user and the avatar.
So it is odd the tech version is described as less effective than the super powers version, maybe intentional. But either way probably best when its an avatar body and not a fully functioning independent brain that is a hivemind entanglement to not have the main body active to avoid any lag or headache issues.
Entanglement is actually particles that act exactly *opposite* the other, and you can’t use them to directly communicate. It’s like this: Suppose you flip two coins, and determine that there’s an odd number of heads/tails, but you wrap them up in little present boxes without knowing anything else. Clearly, one must be heads and the other tails, but now they’re hidden. Doing something like flipping the present box upside-down doesn’t do anything except turn that one box upside down. You can do tricksy quantum stuff with it, including making information flow backwards in time through quantum wires, but none of it is useful for making a magical walkie-talkie.
Thats just it though, if you know that the action on one end of a Quantum entanglement will activate in the opposite manner from the other you can interpret that as a data point.
E.g. I spin this side clockwise one quarter turn, the other side will spin counter clockwise one quarter turn and that can be a 1. I spin this side counter clockwise a quarter turn, and the other side will spin clockwise a quarter turn, that is a 0. Now we have a basic binary data set that can be transmitted between the two points.
After that its just down to how fast the machines can interpret the motion of the particles,
The most important word in your reply is “if”, because changing quantum systems doesn’t alter them the way you’re thinking. If you have two coins with one heads/tails pair between them, turning one over only leaves you with two coins on the same side without telling you which side they’re on. Turning one box upside down doesn’t magically make another box flip too. Between the lack of spatial curvature and the limits of elementary particle mass we’ve observed, there’s a less than 1 in 2^60 chance naturally occuring entanglement has any way to transmit information superluminally. The best I can work out is “have you tried making a wormhole” and if you already have access to a wormhole then you don’t need to deal with entanglement in the first place.
A seriously overpowered build I come back to over and over is from 3.5… (my favorite edition). I have a tendency to build and play characters that are significantly more powerful then what most of the others players in my games run, and since I don’t like overshadowing the other players too much, one of my go to builds is a support character. I’ll go with a Radiant Servant of Pelor Cleric (mostly just doubling down on light magic, empowered healing spells and turning, and gaining martial weapon proficiency in exchange for going down to a d6 HD.). But it’s the feat choices that really send this build into overdrive. I’ll go human for the extra feat, and maybe even take a flaw or two to get down this feat tree quicker… but essentially I take extend spell, persistent spell, and divine metamagic persistent spell to be able to spend turning attempts to power the persistent spell feat… then I just take extra turning over and over. By 6th level I’m able to persist 2 second level spells essentially permanently, by 9th I’m maintaining 4, 3rd or 4th level spells 24/7. And not small spells. I tend to go for big party buffs, like Recitation… which gives everyone in the party a +2 to all their dice rolls… or +3 if they worship Pelor… and a Mass Lesser Vigor so that the entire party has permanent fast healing 1… and maybe a couple others to stack about +5 or so to the parties attacks and saves combined with constant healing. The whole party tends to act as if they are two to three levels tougher than a normal party of their level with my buffs… and I can generally sit in the back and play support and let them handle things till they get nasty. Of course, I don’t neglect buffing my cleric. I tend to have him permanently with “lesser visage of the deity” so he’s got wings and permanent sacred buffs to most of his stats… and at higher levels I have divine power or Righteous might or both running constantly…. so he can fly to a wounded teammate (flight speed means he never is late to reach an ally in need) with an empowered or maximized healing spell (class feature) or a hit from his greatsword swing… and with all the stacked buffs he trends towards +20 to strike and a LOT of damage when he hits. Higher levels I have him in the back with permanent “Darkfire” and have him throwing invisible flames to hit touch AC for half his level in dice damage twice a round…. Which is his go to attack when he wants to stay in back and let everyone else shine while he keeps himself in reserve. The other players love the buffs, and with the way I run him as a primary support and healer and only come in and murder things when it’s a emergency, the other players get to feel strong while knowing I have their backs if something really bad happens. Oh… and yes, I know one good dispel would ruin his day… I always focus on getting items to increase my caster level vs dispelling…. so by high levels you have to hit 10 levels higher than his level to knock out any of his daily buffs. So he almost never loses them.
This was back in 3rd edition ADandD. I had a minotaur. 20 strength. He specialized in gauntlets. And basically, at first level, would one-shot any equivalent monster up till around 8th level, when the shit REALLY hit the fan. I mean, +8 to hot, and +13 to damage. And that’s BASE. No magic items or anything. All he carried around, was a leather sack of rocks. Oh look! Giant strength can pitch rocks for 2d6 +13 damage! Specialized there, too…he was almost as big a holy terror in our campaign as Ginsu, the kobold barbarian who managed to purchase two vorpal hatchets…
Trying to think of corporations that are totally unregulated capitalist’ in practice. About the only sectors I can think of are the social media companies such as Google, TwitterX, Facebook etc. Although p, looks like Google may be broken up as it has been declared as a monopoly. Don’t quite understand that as there are other search engines out there, I use Duck Duck Go myself. I can’t think of any other aspect of life or business that isn’t regulated and in many cases, far too much so and subject to political whim and undue interference.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starship and Falcon9 launch platforms come immediately to mind, while Boeing’s stumbling, behind schedule and overpriced vehicles (Starliner) get a free pass as does ULA. The ‘system’ seems to favor the dynasty old boys while throwing road blocks at the new kids despite their overwhelming performance, low cost and robust vehicles.
Is it me or does Dave seem a lil more jaded with his author notes this time round? Are you okay Dave?
I’m doing alright. Just… there’s only so many episodes of Last Week Tonight and weekly “video game company C-Suite is full of molesters” and “CEO claims financial hardship, fires 8,000 staff, collects $43 Million bonus” and “rapist pedophile treasonous traitor racist pathological liar who doesn’t know how tariffs work somehow garners 49% of U.S. vote” stories one can see before it starts to feel like the enshitification of the world is accelerating and unstoppable.