What ability set would be bad IRL?

[MoiMagnus]

I am pretty sure Gnoman's issue was not the fear of an accidental discharge, but instead the unsettling feeling of always having the ability to cause lethal damage to someone else -- at all times and in a way where you can't just say 'I'm not in the mindset to have control over someone else's continued existence right now'.

Yeah, I also read it as "If I always had a gun on me, I would probably have shoot peoples more than once out of anger, and that's one of the reason I don't want to have a gun on me at all time, and even less magical powers that I can't lock away in a box."

[Telok]

Yeah, I also read it as "If I always had a gun on me, I would probably have shoot peoples more than once out of anger, and that's one of the reason I don't want to have a gun on me at all time, and even less magical powers that I can't lock away in a box."

Well if it was AD&D casting it wouldn't be too bad, what with the ten minute prep time, actual material components, and some DMs not allowing or requiring rolls to cast while drunk/impared. Post 3e where casting is more like a couple swear words in Klingon, a secret handshake, and maybe having a dice bag full of junk you have to touch... You think road rage and the like is bad already?

Thinking about it, anything where the fluff is "you're chosen by a <thing> and get powers" could be pretty bad. Because these are games we, as players, have lots of control over stuff like character builds. But that's not the in-universe stuff, it's all meta layer game decisions. In the fiction what's happening is Nurgle, Demogorgon, Vecna, whatever, chooses you like you're some piddly pokemon laying around. Then you get powers, that you didn't choose and may not even have consious control over.

Yay, you're a priest of disease and mutation now! Dosen't matter if you want the always-on ability to cause terminal cancer in people by proximity, the god chooses you.

[Troacctid]

Then again, this is assuming that my goal is to prove the existence of a specific deity. If my goal was to create upheaval in society in general, I'm one True Resurrection away from being able to prove or disprove the existence of the afterlife, the result of which will have heavy implications for any religion or culture and would be nigh-indisputable if I started with a finger bone and ended up with a breathing, talking Albert Einstein or Kurt Cobain doing a Q&A.

You don't retain your memories of the afterlife after being resurrected, and even if you did, how would you prove your Kurt Cobain is the real deal and not an imitator?

[Quertus]

Nurgle

Yay, you're a priest of disease and mutation now! Dosen't matter if you want the always-on ability to cause terminal cancer in people by proximity, the god chooses you.

Tzeentch probably doesn't appreciate you reassigning his schtick… unless that was the plan all along.

[Gnoman]

Magic missiles has verbal AND somatic components. The chance for that to go off accidentally are non-existent. The same goes for the vast majority of DnD spells.

I am pretty sure Gnoman's issue was not the fear of an accidental discharge, but instead the unsettling feeling of always having the ability to cause lethal damage to someone else -- at all times and in a way where you can't just say 'I'm not in the mindset to have control over someone else's continued existence right now'.

Yeah, I also read it as "If I always had a gun on me, I would probably have shoot peoples more than once out of anger, and that's one of the reason I don't want to have a gun on me at all time, and even less magical powers that I can't lock away in a box."

That is precisely what I meant. There are times when having the ability to easily react lethally is a really risky thing. Having an ability to just straight up blast a fool might sound appealing, but think about things like road rage, let alone situations where you are sleep-deprived, drunk, or otherwise impaired.

[Wraith]

You don't retain your memories of the afterlife after being resurrected

Doesn't say that in the 5e spell description. Is there a general rule for Resurrection in the DMG, or is that from an older edition?

...and even if you did, how would you prove your Kurt Cobain is the real deal and not an imitator?

DNA testing and rigorous interview. The reason that I used Kurt Cobain as an example is because he was around within our (certainly my) lifetime, and there are members of his close family and friends around who could still confirm who they are - his daughter, bandmates, parents, etc. We'd struggle to prove that some rando we had just brought back to the dead really is Napoleon Bonaparte because everyone who knew him well is long dead also, but introduce Cobain to the surviving members of Nirvana? That could work, maybe.

Again there will be some people who believe that under examination Dave Grohl might be lying or incompetent or whatever, but that's always going to be the case in any 'supernatural' event. We'll never conclusively prove to everyone that the CIA isn't listening to their thoughts through their cell phone, but we can probably do so well enough to convince *most* people that what we're doing is real.

[MoiMagnus]

Doesn't say that in the 5e spell description. Is there a general rule for Resurrection in the DMG, or is that from an older edition?

Rules of the afterlife are setting dependent, but up to my knowledge, this particular information has not be clarified in any 5e setting books.

In settings inherited from 3.5, it's reasonable to continue to apply the default from 3.5 (Complete Divine, pages 129 - 130):

When you come back to the world of the living, you remember in general terms what the afterlife was like, but your memories have a vague, dreamlike quality and you’re unable to recall the specifics of events. Whether the afterlife was torment or bliss to you, you have a good idea of what to expect should you die again—unless you alter your behavior markedly enough to change your alignment.

[Mastikator]

DNA testing and rigorous interview. The reason that I used Kurt Cobain as an example is because he was around within our (certainly my) lifetime, and there are members of his close family and friends around who could still confirm who they are - his daughter, bandmates, parents, etc. We'd struggle to prove that some rando we had just brought back to the dead really is Napoleon Bonaparte because everyone who knew him well is long dead also, but introduce Cobain to the surviving members of Nirvana? That could work, maybe.

Again there will be some people who believe that under examination Dave Grohl might be lying or incompetent or whatever, but that's always going to be the case in any 'supernatural' event. We'll never conclusively prove to everyone that the CIA isn't listening to their thoughts through their cell phone, but we can probably do so well enough to convince *most* people that what we're doing is real.

Doesn't prove he was brought back from the dead, more likely is that someone cloned him so perfectly that it's indistinguishable from Kurt before death. Everything he knows? The clone merely learned everything about Kurt.

The problem with miracles is that as soon as you apply occams razor to it any natural explanation (no matter how contrived and implausible) is more likely than the supernatural explanation.

Even if the miracle is performed right before your eyes under the most controlled experiment possible occams razor still states that you pick a non-magic explanation over a magic one.

[MoiMagnus]

Doesn't prove he was brought back from the dead, more likely is that someone cloned him so perfectly that it's indistinguishable from Kurt before death. Everything he knows? The clone merely learned everything about Kurt.

"Perfect cloning" is probably too much of a stretch to be the Occam razor's result (which is probably "you are a fraud that pay good money or blackmail peoples to claim that it works").

I agree that a single miracle will be discarded as a fraud.

But it doesn't really matters how you claim to do it, if you're on a daily basis able to recreate dead peoples that are indistinguishable from their previous self, and that you are able to replicate this feat even on an arbitrary dead person, your method will eventually get investigated scientifically.

You will have a rocky start where you will need to financiary rely on rich persons believing in the occult, but unless you want to remain discrete and just be rich, your fame will attract peoples trying to debunk you, and you will be able to accept those challenges and prove them wrong.

[Wraith]

Rules of the afterlife are setting dependent, but up to my knowledge, this particular information has not be clarified in any 5e setting books.

In settings inherited from 3.5, it's reasonable to continue to apply the default from 3.5 (Complete Divine, pages 129 - 130)

Fair enough. We can perhaps agree that there is at least the possibility that a resurrected people might remember, dependant on setting and what exactly we're bringing into IRL. Or at the very least; if their memories are dreamlike and vague, eventually we can resurrect enough people that they can combine their experiences and fill in the gaps to create a more full picture.

...more likely is that someone cloned him so perfectly that it's indistinguishable from Kurt before death.

And THAT isn't remarkable enough for you!?! Even if all I have to do is lie and say that I *did* make a perfect clone of someone who has been dead for 30 years, are you not even a little bit impressed?

The implications derived from being able to do that every single day is just as staggering and will have collossal impact upon society. And then, like MoiMagnus says, if it happens often enough then SOMEONE is bound to take notice and research it formally and eventually the ability to clone and/or raise the dead will become science fact.

Some people will still think it's a hoax, like the moon landing or JFK's assassination. Fair enough; Those people will be left behind to their own little conspiracy theories and there's nothing that we can really do about that, but for everyone else it reinterprets how we look at science, creation of life, the afterlife and religion. I don't imagine it would be a particularly peaceful process.

[MoiMagnus]

We already have this situation, ostensibly.
There are people alive today that have up to a million eye witness accounts that they performed miracles, not just over their lifetime but in a single day. What's more likely, that all those people are wrong or that miracles were performed. If you ask me it's the former that is more likely.

And they're most likely pretty wealthy out of the peoples that believe it, and most likely never actively tried to have their "talents" scientifically tested because they know they have much more to lose than to win, and are probably even ignoring mails from professional debunkers trying to challenge them.

Pseudo-sciences like homeopathy were scientifically tested (and debunked multiple times). We've plenty of examples in current society where frauds are debunked, but peoples continue to believe in them nevertheless. But we're quite short on cases where attempts to debunk supernatural events consistently failed.

Obviously, it is reasonable for you, as an individual, to doubt those claims up until there is a scientific consensus that says that it works. But I think you're underestimating how much the scientific community would try to honestly debunk you if you're actually trying your best to collaborate with them rather than just trying to extract money out of peoples believing in you.

[Mastikator]

Fair enough. We can perhaps agree that there is at least the possibility that a resurrected people might remember, dependant on setting and what exactly we're bringing into IRL. Or at the very least; if their memories are dreamlike and vague, eventually we can resurrect enough people that they can combine their experiences and fill in the gaps to create a more full picture.



And THAT isn't remarkable enough for you!?! Even if all I have to do is lie and say that I *did* make a perfect clone of someone who has been dead for 30 years, are you not even a little bit impressed?

The implications derived from being able to do that every single day is just as staggering and will have collossal impact upon society. And then, like MoiMagnus says, if it happens often enough then SOMEONE is bound to take notice and research it formally and eventually the ability to clone and/or raise the dead will become science fact.

Some people will still think it's a hoax, like the moon landing or JFK's assassination. Fair enough; Those people will be left behind to their own little conspiracy theories and there's nothing that we can really do about that, but for everyone else it reinterprets how we look at science, creation of life, the afterlife and religion. I don't imagine it would be a particularly peaceful process.

Of course it's impressive, it would change what I believe about the possibilities of cloning humans. It would shatter my understanding of the world.

Still way more likely than actually raising the dead using magic. Infinitely more likely to be cloning than miracle by definition.

[Troacctid]

Doesn't prove he was brought back from the dead, more likely is that someone cloned him so perfectly that it's indistinguishable from Kurt before death. Everything he knows? The clone merely learned everything about Kurt.

The actual more likely possibility is that the DNA test was falsified.

[Jay R]

Yeah, I also read it as "If I always had a gun on me, I would probably have shoot peoples more than once out of anger, and that's one of the reason I don't want to have a gun on me at all time, and even less magical powers that I can't lock away in a box."

"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero."
Edit: "And that would be wrong."

[Silly Name]

Of course it's impressive, it would change what I believe about the possibilities of cloning humans. It would shatter my understanding of the world.

Still way more likely than actually raising the dead using magic. Infinitely more likely to be cloning than miracle by definition.

I would argue that the ability to create perfect clones of long-dead people with their memories intact is functionally the same thing as resurrecting them, and it has INCREDIBLE implications for historical research. Imagine being able to bring back William the Conqueror and ask him who the hell is that lady getting punched by the priest in the Bayeux tapestry, and why it's connected to the Norman conquest of England!

And that's just a tiny bit of historical trivia: there are so many things we can't know for sure due to spotty or incomplete reporting, and this would be a method to talk with direct witnesses of the events! Historians would go crazy! Who the hell was the guy in the Iron Mask? We can just ask him now!

And, again, it's functionally the same thing as bringing someone back from the dead. You're going to have a line of people begging you to bring back their loved ones, heal their sick and all that stuff. If you can cast True Resurrection, you can also cast Remove Disease, upsetting all of modern medicine by being able to cure a terminal patient with just a touch, which is far easier to test for in a controlled environment: bring the purported miracle-caster in a cancer ward, find a patient and let the caster do their magic. Boom, healthy, cancer-free patient right there.

[noob]

So, there's been threads about RPG abilities that would be good, or what D&D classes one would take IRL, but what about abilities that would be *bad* to spontaneously develop?

To make the challenge easier, this doesn't have to be bad for a fully clued-in Playground optimizer - you can even explain how it would be bad for someone with no gaming experience, or even someone from a parallel world where that particular system doesn't exist.

Is it bad because they might not understand the consequences? Bad because it's hard to control? Bad because they might come to rely on it, and find that it fails when they need it? Bad because other people *would* recognize it, and fear/persecute them?

Just how bad can we make this "gift" of abilities of an RPG character?

Any ability that spawns or calls dangerous monsters can make you get persecuted.