Point of order; being strongly pro-Taiwan/anti CPC is as Reddit as it gets, whereas Lemmy, which was founded by Leftists booted off of Reddit (I mean it’s lemmy.ml for Marxist-Leninist, etc.) is not traditionally a place that’s going to focus on mainstream western perspectives of China.

Not even wading into the actual debate here, just figured I should note that

While I’m sure their casualties are undercounted (as are everyone’s), I find it very easy to believe that the real numbers are still low; dropping guided munitions on children doesn’t expose your troops to much risk

Oh absolutely! I’ve heard the term “power gamer” used to describe people who love building the perfect, 100% optimal character that is multiclassed just so with such and such items, who can do X amount of damage per round, and so on. I think some people use that as a derogatory term but I don’t see it that way. It’s just how some people like to play, just as some people like to play characters who are this race with this color hair and an elaborate backstory, stats be damned.

There are absolutely people out there like what you’re asking for. Lots of combat, exploration, puzzles, and roleplay is restricted to basic narration (“my character asks where the bad guy is” “ok, roll persuasion”). They have a presence online as well, for example r/3d6 on Reddit, but it’s a bit smaller/less vocal than the RP folks I think.

Here’s my source. It’s the latter case, they use digital sales figures from the companies that provide them.

You raise a good point: if Larian aren’t sharing sales figures then it’s not possible to definitively compare them. I don’t think the 22M figure is very credible (as the other commenter said it doesn’t match up with the data we do have regarding player count/copies sold, and came completions) but even 5-7M copies sold sounds like it would place BG3 on the list. There’s enough bleakness in the gaming scene as it is, so I’m glad to hear it might not be quite as bleak as I thought.

I genuinely wonder how much it matters though. From online discussions you’ll see that Baldur’s Gate 3 is beloved by fans and held up as a benchmark for community engagement and listening to player feedback. It won GotY, had a launch far beyond anything the devs expected, and got incredible rave reviews.

But if you look at the top 20 best-selling games of the year, Starfield is #10 despite a lukewarm reception, numerous issues, and being accessible via Xbox Gamepass, while BG3 isn’t even on the list.

I think it really brings into perspective just how small a minority the people who post online about these things are, regardless of platform. Maybe the Gamers don’t know jack about your job, or maybe all their criticisms are 100% right. If it sells millions of copies either way, who cares?

The occasional salty dev, I guess

I like this concept, and I think at a table where players are more likely to just put random rings on and see what happens it could be a lot of fun. I also like the concept of losing fingers and how that might impact a character. Maybe it eventually imposes disadvantage on attacks for a melee character, or affects a spellcaster’s ability to use spells with material components. You could specify in the description if you like, but a DM could also have some fun figuring out the exact consequences

I see some important bits of info you should add:

1. Is it an action or bonus action? Magic items in 5e will specify. So the description would read something like, “as an action, the wearer points the digit wearing the ring at a target within range, causing the ring to glow as it focuses its energy. On the wearer’s next turn…” Alternatively, if you don’t think it should require an action, you could say “When the finger wearing the ring is pointed at the target (no action required)…”

2. What’s the range? The various spells have different ranges as written, but perhaps setting them all to one high value would be fitting for a legendary item

3. What’s the spellcasting ability used? This informs the hit bonus/saving throw DC. For example, I as a DM would need to know what a target has to roll on their DEX save against that fireball.

That’s an interesting idea, and I can definitely see some groups liking that, but I don’t think it’s for my table. It would end up buffing enemies and skew balance towards casters. I do think it could be an interesting trait for a boss though, to represent especially potent spellcasting ability

Yeah from what I know it’s one of the more commonly banned spells. Personally I just don’t like the idea of banning published content. Making an effort to keep things mysterious until the spell is actually taking effect is a bit cleaner of a solution, and I do like the teamwork aspect of a RAW spell identification + counterspell

Yeah I’m not against using it as a means of tweaking balance in encounters, like if a particular character is trivializing or dominating every encounter with certain spells

Oh now that’s an interesting house rule. That actually gives me an idea for situations where you upcast counterspell but it still requires a check RAW: adding a bonus for the level of the upcast. So if a 6th level spell is cast, and a 5th level counterspell comes out in response, the counterspell caster can add another +2 to their D20 + spellcasting ability check

Yeah this would potentially be a nice solution; I do think it’s fair that if you see someone casting a spell you yourself can cast, you’ll recognize what it is. The one drawback I can see is that it requires me to have everyone’s spell list memorized, which increases the chances I miss one of the matches.

The more I think about the arcana check, the more I’m interested in it; initially I was worried adding additional checks every time somebody casts a spell could slow combat down too much, but maybe I’m overthinking that.

Yeah waiving the reaction cost for that could be a good solution. Did it not affect the flow of combat too much in your experience?

Sure, it’s conventional explosive with radioactive markers to test the detection capabilities of their equipment. I was being polite with my earlier comment, in case I had missed something in the article, but I guess I didn’t.

The Wikipedia page on Explosives gives some reading on the differences between the two. Suffice it to say, chemical and nuclear explosions are fundamentally different things; breaking/reforming of molecular bonds to produce heat and energy, compared to splitting or fusing atoms themselves, which releases FAR more energy than those molecular reactions since the bonds holding atomic nuclei together are so much stronger. If we say that a nuclear explosion is literally any explosion + radioisotopes, then you could buy some uranium online, tape it to a brick of plastic explosive, and say you’ve got yourself a nuke. Maybe someone should tell Iran they don’t need to waste all that money on centrifuges.

You’re half right though, in that this probably is a response to Russia, but demonstrating your ability to detect underground nuclear tests is not at all the same thing as actually conducting one.

Where are you seeing that the US conducted a nuclear test? The article only mentions a chemical explosion

I believe those are total numbers, so that includes both operational warheads (ready to launch) and stored warheads. The article here is specifically referring to the number of operational warheads China has, which is still much lower than that of Russia and the US, but the gap isn’t quite as wide as 500-6,000

Yeah where are those descriptions coming from? Also mentions “the strike workers’ strike” and repeats “politics” twice

Ah ok got it. It definitely trips me up all the time as well haha.

I actually don’t mind the difference for barbarian and rogue because I see it as an additional attack and not an extra attack. So like I think treating the +1 attack from the extra attack feature differently than the use of a resource (reaction) to make an additional attack is fine mechanically. I feel like I could sit down with a player who didn’t like that ruling and give a proper reason for it besides “I’m just following the words on the page”.

So you actually can cast 2 leveled spells per round, even RAW, because that reaction spell would be on somebody else’s turn. Interestingly the “per turn” distinction also permits the use of sneak attack more than once per round. The limit on it is once per turn, and it’s possible to make a reaction attack that fits the requirements for sneak attack on somebody else’s turn. I was surprised when I read this in the Sage Advice compendium, but it’s because I misremembered sneak attack as being once per round.

Yeah it does make quickened spell way more powerful, and there’s not much love for sorcerer amongst the people I DM for, so I haven’t really seen it in combat.

True, although I feel like requiring proper resource management would encourage the same sort of creativity. Maybe you want to keep that 3rd level spell slot available in case you need a counterspell, or to cast Fly for exploration later on