OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread

[hamishspence]

Those tend to be extremely uncommon though, for what it's worth.

The D&D cosmos is so big that even "extremely uncommon" still happens enough to be worth noting.


https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p.../AscendedDemon

Tabletop Games

Dungeons & Dragons:

K'rand Vahlix is a general of the Risen Fiends who have fled to the various Upper Planes, organizing them into the Celestial Hosts, and is so powerful and good-aligned that he is completely unafraid of any Deep Cover Agents that might assassinate him, which is the main obstacle to most Risen Fiends associating with each other.

[danielxcutter]

I'm more saying that they're in the vast minority.

[hamishspence]

Yup - that's what "Always X alignment" means after all - something like less than 1%. Maybe as low as 1 in a million (Savage Species gives that figure).


A few fiends, for one reason or another, have [Usually] or even [Often] for their alignment, and exceptions will be more common for those. The Cambion demon from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is Often CE, Usually Evil, and 10% are Not Evil.

[danielxcutter]

Yup - that's what "Always X alignment" means after all - something like less than 1%. Maybe as low as 1 in a million (Savage Species gives that figure).


A few fiends, for one reason or another, have [Usually] or even [Often] for their alignment, and exceptions will be more common for those. The Cambion demon from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is Often CE, Usually Evil, and 10% are Not Evil.

Ironically half-fiends don't even have the Evil subtype and yet are more often Evil than cambions which have even more demon blood.

[Silent Wrangler]

I love the implication that Haley has a magic dye job. I know it’s just a representation of the AMF but it’s still funny.

The funniest thing? She does have.
(I am NOT checking whole thread for same response)

[danielxcutter]

That’s not a dye job or continual effect so an AMF does nothing.

[Fyraltari]

"de•mon dē′mən►
n. An evil supernatural being; a devil."

[Noted!]

You are not answering the questions.

[hamishspence]

Ironically half-fiends don't even have the Evil subtype and yet are more often Evil than cambions which have even more demon blood.

As written, while cambions are usually half-fiend, half tiefling, they can be half-fiend, half Other Planetouched. And the tiefling half, when they are half-tiefling, doesn't have to be demon-blooded - it could be descended from any fiend - hags, devils, yugoloths, divine servants of evil gods, etc.

The normal explanation given for nonevil cambions is "the mother wasn't evil". Possibly when a demon breeds with a nonevil planetouched, the "alignment of the demon" doesn't get passed on to the offspring, due to some weird kind of interference.

[bunsen_h]

And that, people, is why it's important to thouroughly comment and document your code.

There are several aspects to that. One is including blocks of text that explain what the bits of code are doing. Another is to use meaningful variable names, e.g. "probe_speed" instead of "v" or even "speed".

And then there are "magic numbers". Instead of a calculation where a mass is multiplied by 2.2, one would multiply by POUNDS_PER_KILOGRAM, where POUNDS_PER_KILOGRAM has been defined to be 2.2 . This has multiple benefits. There's clarity; it makes it much easier to search for places in the code where that particular kind of conversion has been done (especially if "2.2" is used in other ways, not involving pound/kilogram conversions); it makes it easy to globally change calculations if the conversion factor of pounds/kilograms should happen to change.

I have a colleague who's really bad about using "magic numbers". Yes, it's much faster to just type, say, "0" instead of "menu_number", and it may work fine for a quick test. But it fails if one tries to use any menu but the first one. On a number of occasions, I've been assigned to fix bugs in his work, and when I've asked him for help in parsing his code, he's just told me that it's really complicated, and not worth fixing, and I should just leave it alone. "If you touch it, you'll break it even worse." He can't figure out his own work, just a few months after he's done it. When I struggle through it, changing the "magic numbers" to meaningful variables and defined constants, the bug and its solution become obvious.

ETA: Then there's the legibility factor of including spaces in the code. It's faster to type

momentum=mass*2.2*vel

but it's far more legible to have

momentum = mass * POUNDS_PER_KILOGRAM * vel

Make Whole on the pile should work fine.

Nope, because those are 5000 different objects. But one single drawing torn apart in 5000 pieces would be repaired by Make Whole and maybe Mending depending on the mass (less than 1 lb, don't ask me what kind of lb).

A jigsaw puzzle is made by taking a single cardboard-backed picture and cutting it into a bunch of pieces with a cutter shaped like the pieces -- a roller or a stamper. When I spread out a new puzzle, I often find that a few pieces are still attached to each other because the cutter hasn't quite done its job. (In earlier days, such puzzles were backed by wood, and cut apart using a jig saw, hence the name.) So what comes out of the box is N pieces, but they used to be a single object.

[Petrocorus]

There are several aspects to that. One is including blocks of text that explain what the bits of code are doing. Another is to use meaningful variable names, e.g. "probe_speed" instead of "v" or even "speed".
.....

ETA: (Then there's the legibility factor of including spaces in the code. It's faster to type "momentum=mass*2.2*vel" but it's far more legible to have "momentum = mass * POUNDS_PER_KILOGRAM * vel".)

That's actually good to know.

A jigsaw puzzle is made by taking a single cardboard-backed picture and cutting it into a bunch of pieces with a cutter shaped like the pieces -- a roller or a stamper. When I spread out a new puzzle, I often find that a few pieces are still attached to each other because the cutter hasn't quite done its job. (In earlier days, such puzzles were backed by wood, and cut apart using a jig saw, hence the name.) So what comes out of the box is N pieces, but they used to be a single object.

Then that's will be up to the DM.

[Riftwolf]

I'm hoping at the end of this fight the Order learns the importance of non-magical ranged fighting. I'm surprised Belkar hasn't got *something* to fight from a distance (his daggers being a poor substitute).

To paraphrase Dr McNinjas mum, "if you can't beat an old woman with an anti-magic field from a distance, you're not going to be much good against anything else."

[subtledoctor]

I recommend some aspirin.

Speaking of aspirin and unit conversion reminds me of the time my daughter was sick as a baby. The nurse measured her weight in pounds but marked it in kilograms, and then the doctor prescribed a near-overdose amount of Tylenol. I caught the error and gave her the correct dosage at home... but it was mildly alarming.

Still didn't convince me that we need to adopt the sissy metric system. STERLING 4 LIFE!!

[Mr Popo]

Oh, yeah! That was amazing! Go Haley, go Haley! *waves pom-poms*

Also, the conversation about petrification between Sunny and Serini was a little disturbing, especially as I’m struggling to tell how comedic Sunny’s bold-italic response to “we have glue at home” is supposed to be. Is it supposed to be like a whiney kid’s “Mo-om!” or more like an adult telling their mother “Mom.”?

Serini is clearly not as "good" aligned as Sunny is.

[bunsen_h]

That's actually good to know.

It comes down to code maintainability. One should always work with an eye towards it being understandable to whoever else might have to update it, or to understand it for other reasons such as making other software work with it. Which might even be oneself, sometime later. To me, the clear indication that my colleague's work is objectively poor, rather than merely "not the way I would do it", is that he can't figure it out himself after only a few months. "Just don't touch it or you'll break something" is NOT an acceptable standard. Unfortunately, I'm just a part-timer, so he has more influence than I do.

Many years ago now, I did a bit of code to calibrate the controls on a device we were building. The system operator was supposed to run the controls to their limits, back and forth, until the standard deviation of the extreme values of the controls was acceptably small. I thought I'd documented the code sufficiently, and in general my then-manager agreed, except that he wanted me to explain -- in detail -- what a standard deviation was and what it meant. I thought that that was a bit much. I thought that anyone likely to be working on our code would have at least that level of math background, and if not, there was this thing called "internet". But he got to make the call, so I spent a while writing up a really clear, thorough, overkill explanation.

Speaking of aspirin and unit conversion reminds me of the time my daughter was sick as a baby. The nurse measured her weight in pounds but marked it in kilograms, and then the doctor prescribed a near-overdose amount of Tylenol. I caught the error and gave her the correct dosage at home... but it was mildly alarming.

Tylenol is problematic. The maximum safe effective dose isn't much smaller than doses that can cause serious injury. With many medications, if one accidentally doubles one's dose for a day, one might get sick for a while. Double the maximum dose of Tylenol for a day risks serious permanent liver damage or death. That factor of 2.2 that you describe could have been fatal, if the intended dose was near the maximum safe limit.

[pi4t]

Should panel 4 say "Second Storey competition"? Or do you spell it "story" in America even when you're talking about a building?

[bunsen_h]

Should panel 4 say "Second Storey competition"? Or do you spell it "story" in America even when you're talking about a building?

"Story" is the usual spelling for both meanings.

ETA:

Also, the conversation about petrification between Sunny and Serini was a little disturbing, especially as I’m struggling to tell how comedic Sunny’s bold-italic response to “we have glue at home” is supposed to be. Is it supposed to be like a whiney kid’s “Mo-om!” or more like an adult telling their mother “Mom.”?

I took it to be the latter: Sunny standing up to Serini (so to speak).

[Petrocorus]

To me, the clear indication that my colleague's work is objectively poor, rather than merely "not the way I would do it", is that he can't figure it out himself after only a few months. "Just don't touch it or you'll break something" is NOT an acceptable standard.

I have myself done this.
In my defence, i'm not a professional.

[Shining Wrath]

Based on the experience of countries that actually switched over (AKA at one time or another, pretty much all of them except the USA), people actually adjust pretty quickly for the units they use regularly.

Dual signage lets people NOT swap as they just ignore the metric signs, if you want them to switch you pull down the English signs and go to kilometers and KMH for everything on the highway.

The big issue is that the conversion is actually getting less important/useful all the time. In 1975 it would have been very handy to be using metric for anything you need to calculate about something physical. In 2021? Who does physics in their head now? The calculations you actually use can be programmed into a computer and it handles the units nonsense, the PROGRAMMER needs to get it right, so it's one more source of code bugs, but even there, it's usually handled.

Hell, we invented the bloody system and there are still things (like leasuring screen width) we don't use it for.

Not a satellite, it was a probe that crashed on Mars.

And that, people, is why it's important to thouroughly comment and document your code.

The problem was the interface; Jet Propulsion Laboratory was commanding in units of Newtons, but Lockheed Martin programmed the orbiter in pounds; the conversion factor is 4.8N/lbf. I worked for LM at the time; it was quite embarrassing even though JPL was Prime and therefore had to accept responsibility for interface errors. They were trying to make small adjustments to the orbit as they flew to Mars, and the difference between a mouse fart in Newtons and a mouse fart in pounds was not apparent from telemetry.

[Mariele]

Is Haley Chaotic Evil for drop kicking the elderly

Yes. *slams hand on desk*

Wow, can't believe Sunny charmed Elan ten pages ago. Just reread the whole sequence, it goes so much better that way. Feels less like people standing around forever doing nothing and people being momentarily stunned by an ambush. =P

[danielxcutter]

I'm hoping at the end of this fight the Order learns the importance of non-magical ranged fighting. I'm surprised Belkar hasn't got *something* to fight from a distance (his daggers being a poor substitute).

To paraphrase Dr McNinjas mum, "if you can't beat an old woman with an anti-magic field from a distance, you're not going to be much good against anything else."

The thing is, everything becomes close to useless inside an AMF because of how ubiquitous magical bonuses are and how encounters are normally designed around the players having sufficient gear to keep up.

[goodpeople25]

I think it's fair to say that if this was a real game, all the players would have walked before we even got to Blood Runs In the Family. From the "if this was a game" viewpoint, Don't Split the Party arguably reads as the DM being sick of the game and trying to kill them all off and deciding to yank the wizard's chain after that.

And from that viewpoint the players wouldn't read as varying levels of toxic who would have broken up the group in the middle of the first dungeon? I know this is a hypothetical and it's easier to judge one person running the game then a player who's muddied up with their character (and given some of the characters involved that would get quite muddy indeed) but you seem to be overly focusing on the DM and ignoring the agency of the players.

[Dewin Dwl]

There's also the Great British Pound (GBP) which causes some confusion (someone I went to school with worked on a cheese counter, got asked for half a pound of cheese so she cut 50p worth)

The Welsh language, conveniently, has different words for each of these. The money is a "punt" (as in Irish), whereas the measure is a "pwys" (literally a "weigh" ).

[danielxcutter]

And from that viewpoint the players wouldn't read as varying levels of toxic who would have broken up the group in the middle of the first dungeon? I know this is a hypothetical and it's easier to judge one person running the game then a player who's muddied up with their character (and given some of the characters involved that would get quite muddy indeed) but you seem to be overly focusing on the DM and ignoring the agency of the players.

Oh, the "players" were absolutely toxic early on, especially Belkar's and Elan's. It goes both ways really.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

It comes down to code maintainability. One should always work with an eye towards it being understandable to whoever else might have to update it, or to understand it for other reasons such as making other software work with it. Which might even be oneself, sometime later. To me, the clear indication that my colleague's work is objectively poor, rather than merely "not the way I would do it", is that he can't figure it out himself after only a few months. "Just don't touch it or you'll break something" is NOT an acceptable standard. Unfortunately, I'm just a part-timer, so he has more influence than I do.

Many years ago now, I did a bit of code to calibrate the controls on a device we were building. The system operator was supposed to run the controls to their limits, back and forth, until the standard deviation of the extreme values of the controls was acceptably small. I thought I'd documented the code sufficiently, and in general my then-manager agreed, except that he wanted me to explain -- in detail -- what a standard deviation was and what it meant. I thought that that was a bit much. I thought that anyone likely to be working on our code would have at least that level of math background, and if not, there was this thing called "internet". But he got to make the call, so I spent a while writing up a really clear, thorough, overkill explanation.

Just thinking this should probably be on the grumpy tech board, but anyway...

It's not so relevant for unit conversion, but using global variables also gives you much more flexibility with rates that change - for example, if sales tax/VAT/whatever changes, it's a lot easier to update a single file than search through your entire code base to locate every single point it's used and update it correctly.

I'd also say comments are essential for the looking at it again in six months time reason - I actually had an argument about that with someone a few months back, they were more of the opinion that the code's all perfectly clear and comments just take up space. .

[skim172]

Since we're being pedantic, technically, a pound-mass is abbreviated as lbm. "lb" refers to a a pound of force. I fully expect someone more pedantic than I to prove me wrong.
As to the US (thus D&D, and hence The Order of the Stick) still being stuck with a non-SI system, that's because some idiot inserted "voluntary" into the Metric Conversion Act of 1975. As an engineer, I find that morally indefensible. But we're stuck with it for now.

Hypothesis: As the metric system is based on fixed constants of nature, then perhaps this indicates that the D&D/Stick-verse does not abide by the same physical laws as our own. In order to account the existence of magic in the D&D/Stick-verse, the fundamental physics cannot be the same.

The original kilogram was defined as the mass of a liter of water at the temperature of melting ice (and vice versa). But, in a universe where any random Joe Schmoe can cause a cone of ice to emerge out of nowhere, in any environment, regardless of ambient temperature or moisture ... perhaps the temperature of melting ice is not fixed. Maybe this is a universe where the constants are not constant. Perhaps the mass of water just changes randomly. The elementary charge just swings up and down at will. And the speed of light is really more of a guideline.


In the real world, of course - we all know who keeps the metric system down. It's the same folk who control the British crown. Their insidious conspiracies keep Atlantis off the maps. And also keeps the Martians under wraps.

Who do you think holds back the electric car?
And who do you think makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?

These are the crucial questions of our age.

[Vikenlugaid]

Serini is clearly not as "good" aligned as Sunny is.

My guess is chaotic neutral

[a_flemish_guy]

My guess is chaotic neutral

my guess is chaotic grumpy
honestly, I'm still leaning towards chaotic goodish, it's just that this is the time of the eggs and the omelet, she feels like she has to take out the order now or else all is lost (especially since she did just find them having bypassed a trap that team evil hadn't breached for weeks and the bugbears for decades) and if she has to kill one or a few of them then that's nothing compared to the world

also haley landing her boots right on her face reminds me of this remark
mebbe, but at least nale stops with the pontificatin if he's trying to hide

[a_flemish_guy]

The description of alignment subtypes indeed suggests that aligned outsiders can change alignment, but as beings tied to their native planes will continue to be associated with the alignment of that plane.
At the same time the 3.5 Book of Exalted deeds says in the part about redeeming villains

(it later states that evil dragons have only a bare glimmer of hope, but creatures that are usually evil, such as goblins or orcs, can be redeemed, and gives an example of a redeemed mind flayer)
From yet another standpoint, I think that existence of fallen angels (such as erinyes) proves that aligned outsiders can change alignment along with the associated plane and subtype. And if it can happen in the downward direction, it may be not impossible to happen in reverse.

there's an example in one of the D&D books of a succubus palladin (I think it was exalted deeds even)
but like somebody else pointed out: due to her nature she'd continue to ping as evil (also many people forget that due to the rules as written 1/3th of mortal races would ping as evil (personally I'd disagree with this, 8/10 people would ping neutral, 1/10 good and 1/10 evil), not caring wether or not your actions hurt people makes you evil, not because your actions have hurt others, detect evil isn't sufficient reason to kill them)

the only creatures that would ping as evil and are irredeemable are necromantic constructs without higher brainpower like zombies and skeletons and cursed spirits like ghosts or wraiths

[mrelegos]

Pathfinder has a Succubus who got afflicted with empathy and ethics after she ate a cleric. She ends up becoming a major force for good in the worldwound

[Gusion]

Pathfinder has a Succubus who got afflicted with empathy and ethics after she ate a cleric. She ends up becoming a major force for good in the worldwound

This is how Cadderly Bonaduce should have gone out.