Did They Leave Through The Back Door?

impish

/ˈɪmpɪʃ/

adjective:

inclined to do slightly naughty things for fun; mischievous

look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,

If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.

Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.

What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.

Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.

Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.

this was supposed to be a warmup

"You said that you felt alone. Never here. Not while I draw breath." Happy Valentine's Day ♥ 🌿🌸🪷🌺🌿

Craving the manic high I felt while watching calamity and hearing Brennan deliver the line "I didn't do anything wrong"

Break the chains

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base

figure out your pc's average damage output and their optimal damage output. why?

a. you will always have a default strategy to turn to in a pinch and will know the range of what your pc can do under optimal conditions b. your dm knowing that your rogue could hypothetically do 50 damage in a turn under the best circumstances is good information for them to have to balance encounters.

here's how i do it:

first i want to figure out 'what is the most likely combination of action and bonus action to deal damage my character can take on a given turn without using an expendable resource that only effects them that turn', things like a barbarian rage or a bladesong are different because that's a lingering buff.

lets say we're a 5th level vengeance paladin, 20 strength with a longsword & shield

our sustainable turn would probably be presumably to bonus action vow of enmity (and if we already had who could say what we'd use our bonus action for) and then action attack twice.

2d8 + 10 = average of 19 points of damage.

then you want to figure out what's the most amount of damage i could do in my turn under optimal conditions. optimal conditions for our paladin. we already have vow of emnity going. we have branding smite as a bonus action, action attack twice, presuming both hit and we decide to expend our other 2nd level spell slot and one of our first level spell slots.

2d8 + 2d6 + 3d8 + 2d8 + 10 = average of 48.5 points of damage.

assuming you're fighting a fiend or undead you actually get to add an average of 9 more points of damage to that too.

so yeah one can see why this information is both useful to know as a player and as a dm. of course, this is assuming your attacks hit and doesn't take into account advantage/disadvantage or feats like gwm/sharpshooter. but the point is not always to be able to flex about how much damage your pc can deal. it is to KNOW what you can do if you needed to, what is a sustainable option for you damage-wise and helps you figure out whether it serves you / your party better to use your turn to attempt to attack or to use it to support another endeavor in an encounter.

cheers i use anydice.com to do my math for me.

musk is going to die in a Tesla explosion in 6 months after sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and we will never get a conclusive answer on whether it was a CIA car bomb or just a normal Tesla malfunction