Worse! At just level 7, a rogue is likely to have +11 and Advantage to pick a lock, which combined with Reliable Talent means they can’t fail a DC 21, and have a 1/2 chance of beating a DC 26.

So if you want there to be uncertainty and challenge, you have to make the DC more like 25-28. Making it all the more likely that the lock should be impossible to the rest of the party.

If I wanted to formally add ability check crits I would make them add/subtract something from your result. Not automatically pass/fail, because the consequences of that are bonkers.

Well DnD consistently doesn’t have criticals outside of attack rolls and death saves.

Like the person you replied to asked, what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit? If the DM only lets you roll on things that would be possible for you, then you would succeed on a 20 anyway. If the DM lets you roll on impossible things, then you have a 5% of doing the impossible. Neither option is good.

I absolutely let a 20 or 1 have extra effect whenever it makes sense and feels right. But having it be a core rule would be a PITA.

Not to mention that it would make skill checks even more driven by randomness, which is already a problem.

You are right! I was fooled by my server already having git installed and this requirement not being mentioned anywhere. I guess that explains why it uses SSH rather than SCP/SFTP.

I feel like you made it sound a bit backwards :)

There’s nothing to install on a “git server”, git doesn’t have a server component. You can point your git client to a remote place where it can store its files using SSH. But you don’t install anything on the server for this.

Which is why self hosting a git remote is super easy. All you need is a server with ssh and a little bit of storage.

If you just want to sync code between different computers and have a backup, that’s all you need.

It’s not about identity as much as it’s a very poor way to try to convince someone.

Don’t base your line of argument on a statement you know the other person will likely disagree with.

For example “You should play Pathfinder because DnD sucks”, holds no weight to people who don’t think that DnD sucks. In fact if they happen to like DnD, it undermines your argument, because if you disagree about DnD, aren’t you also likely to disagree about Pathfinder?

If they play a system, they probably like that system and find its shortcomings acceptable. You can’t convince someone that a system isn’t enjoyable when they have first-hand evidence to the contrary.

Asking people to stop being comfortable doing something they like, so that they can be uncomfortable doing something you like, isn’t a good value proposition.

If you lead with “Thing you like is actually bad”, their immediate response will be to disagree with you and start defending the thing they like. And if you want someone to listen to your arguments, rather than just try to poke holes in them, you must avoid putting them on the defensive.

To get through to people, find common ground and build off that. “If you like FEATURE in GAME, you’ll probably love SIMILAR FEATURE in OTHER GAME because…” is something that’s actually going to get someone interested, rather than start a pointless argument :)

Well there are no crits on checks in 5e, so a nat 20 +0 is no different from a nat 6 +14. And someone with a +14 can’t fail a check with a DC of 15 or lower.

Having Degrees of Success built into the system in PF2 is really neat though. And seems like something DnD could easily incorporate if Wizards had any vision.

“shouldn’t be too hard”?!

A regular lich is CR 21.

For comparison, an adult red dragon is CR 17 and the most powerful demon, the balor, is CR 19.

There are almost no creatures more powerful than liches. Even ones that are not Vecna.

Last time Iran tried to become a liberal and democratic country the UK and US organized a coup to replace the government with a more dictatorial one, which is how they ended up like this. Is more violent foreign intervention the solution? We’re about to find out!

Looking at their track record there’s no reason to believe Isreal would give an occupied Iran any rights or do anything good for them. More likely it’s just more territory to be ethnically cleansed and repopulated after they’re done with Palestine.

Repeating what they heard is very different from automatically processing the chat to harvest personal information about the participants.

Just because some data is publicly available doesn’t mean all processing of that data is legal and moral.

You’re both getting side-tracked by this discussion of recording. The recording is likely legal in most places.

It’s the processing of that unstructured data to extract and store personal information that is problematic. At that point you go from simply recording a conversation of which you are a part, to processing and storing people’s personal data without their knowledge, consent, or expectation.

Economists refuse to accept that their subject is really just sociology. They like to imagine it being like physics, where study of reality leads to underlying mathematical truths to extrapolate from. Not a big messy subject where you can’t be certain of anything.

What makes it even more freaky is that many of the subjects being studied know they are playing a game. So in many ways economy is more like the evolving metagame of competitive sports, where hardcore nerds constantly try to game the system and outplay each other, and what was a solid strategy last month doesn’t work anymore, even if the rules are the same.

I honestly feel that the motivations for someone from a happy home are often better. They are people who want to adventure for some very compelling reason (that you are forced to come up with). They are invested in the world, with things to loose, things they want to accomplish, loved ones to threaten, history and interests they want to share etc.

Good thing the US doesn’t recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, so there’s no risk of them having to face consequences for their war crimes.

They even have a law that makes it illegal to cooperate with the ICC in bringing US personnel to justice, and that allows the president to use any force necessary to prevent it from happening.

Even if the actions really do nothing, they get people active and organized, so that they can take more effective actions later on.

I honestly think a lot of this criticism is people’s internalized rationalization for why they themselves don’t take action.

Who? Who is selling you out? Ocasio Cortez? Really?

What do those NGOs have to say about Julian Assange or Steven Donziger

“RSF defends Assange because of his contributions to journalism” https://rsf.org/en/rsf-dispels-common-misconceptions-case-against-julian-assange

“CPJ welcomes reports that Assange will be released in plea deal” https://cpj.org/2024/06/cpj-welcomes-reports-that-assange-will-be-released-in-plea-deal/

“USA must drop charges against Julian Assange” https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/julian-assange-usa-justice/

“Biden Should Pardon Steven Donziger” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/biden-should-pardon-steven-donziger-before-leaving-office/

I’m getting the distinct impression you have no idea wtf you are talking about

the stories that come out first tend to be most biased

I honestly think the concept of news is actually harmful, because it’s about reporting what happened, not about making the audience understand the subject. It puts a premium on getting the report out as quickly as possible, and favours the most shocking events and interpretations that draw people’s attention.

Ultimately most news are “empty calories” of information that mostly give an illusion of knowledge. “Explosion in Herptown, dozens wounded” does not meaningfully increase your understanding of the world, it mostly just makes you scared. It will take weeks until the cause and consequences of the explosion can be fully understood, and a lot of research to put that into perspective.

If you do not know the extent of pressure asserted on Chinese media that is willful ignorance.

Of course “our media” (whatever you mean by that) is the only media that can report on it as Chinese media is heavily censored.

If you want to know the extent the information easy to find.

Here’s some of what Reporters Without Borders have to say

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide.”

“The Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party sends a detailed notice to all media every day that includes editorial guidelines and censored topics.”

“Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report “sensitive” information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured.”

Source: https://rsf.org/en/country/china

This is from The Committee to Protect Journalists

“China has long ranked as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. Censorship makes the exact number of journalists jailed there notoriously difficult to determine, but Beijing’s media crackdown has widened in recent years”

Source: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-journalist-numbers-near-record-high-israel-imprisonments-spike/

Here’s Amnesty International

“Chinese authorities continued to severely curtail rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including through the abusive application of laws often under the pretext of preserving national security.”

Source: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/