Tag: Always

Do weapon-based qualities always have to be used with the weapon that triggers them?

There are several qualities in the game that relate to specific weapon categories, most notably the "[weapon category] Fighter I-III" line. Some of these are pretty clear in that their benefits apply to only this weapon, such as Short Blade Fighter I adding Piercing 1 to the weapon or Polearm Fighter I stating "you can sweep your pole-arm". Others are pretty clear in that they don’t – Water Dancer I and II require points in Fencing, but grant passive benefits that are written to be universally active.

Some don’t mention anything of the sort, but can be argued to be self-evident. Spear Fighter I doesn’t mention spears at all, and by RAW probably could be used with any weapon, but I would be receptive to the argument that the quality is meant for use with spears only. The flavour text supports this.

Where I run into trouble is the qualities that require you to have a weapon equipped, but don’t explicitly require its use. If I look at Bravoosi Fighter III for example, it requires the character to have a fencing weapon equipped. However, imagine someone using a left-hand-dagger (a fencing weapon) in one hand and another one-handed weapon, maybe a battleaxe or longsword*, in the other. It could be well argued that the character is "armed" with a fencing weapon and thus fulfills the requirements to use this quality, but could make the counterattack with the other (more damaging) weapon. It’s not even implausible in terms of fencing, on the contrary, using one weapon to parry and the other to counter is perfectly sensible. Several other such qualities can lead to similar combinations.

I assume that the RAW here is just sloppily written, but do we have any source on what the RAI is and what are the balance considerations towards allowing or disallowing such combos?

*in the sense of an arming sword that the game calls a longsword.

For dynamically batched objects the `unity_ObjectToWorld` shader variable is always set to default?

I’m using the standard render pipeline and the unity_ObjectToWorld variable for some calculations in my shader. After I enabled dynamic batching these calculations got broken. It seems that unity_ObjectToWorld is set to default when the objects are being batched. Is it by design? I didn’t find anything in the documentation.

Is it always safe to use WITH SCHEMABINDING in a UDF?

SO I have been reading about WITH SCHEMABINDING and how it can improve the performance of queries using a scalar UDF by omitting the table spool operator from the execution plan. I think I understand halloween protection.

My question is: If I add WITH SCHEMABINDING to a UDF used in a SP is it possible that a SP does not give the same results? If yes in what scenario?

Is the DM Always Right?

I recently got into a disagreement with my DM for a DND 5E game regarding a use of Prestidigitation.

The argument was that since it could create a Non-Magical Trinket, and Music Boxes are specifically listed in the Trinket section of the book, I should be able to make one, even if it is only temporary.

Her argument was that a music box did not fall under her definition of a trinket.

I’ve asked about the D&D 5e rules for that situation already, but now I’m asking whether the DM has the authority to change that rule in our game if she wants.

How does Automatic Seeding work – Always On Availability Group

I found only these two statements from BOL regarding this Initial Data Synchronization method:

Link 1

Automatic seeding uses the log stream transport to stream the backup using VDI to the secondary replica for each database of the availability group using the configured endpoints.

Link 2

During automatic seeding, SQL Server performs a backup over the network for initialization.

Looking into SQL Server Error logs of both primary and secondary replicas, these two logs caught my attention:

On primary replica

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On secondary replica

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My question is related to the working nature of automatic seeding, namely where does taken backup is stored before restoring on the secondary replica?

Eldritch Smite: Can you decide whether the enemy goes prone or do they always go prone?


Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a warlock spell slot to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to the target, plus another 1d8 per level of the spell slot, and you can knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller.

Since it says "can knock the target prone." I assumed it was optional, (though you wouldn’t have much reason not to if in melee, within 5 ft.)

Why do agents always employ the same algorithm when playing a congestion game?

I’ve been conducting research into congestion games and have come across many papers that study the effects on the outcome of a game played by agents employing a particular algorithm e.g. seeing how quickly Nash equilibrium is approached when using a modified version of fictitious play.

Is there any particular reason as to why there hasn’t been any research conducted that looks into agents using different algorithms playing a single congestion game? For example, agents who uses fictitious play playing alongside agents who use a q-learning algorithm.

My players have a habit of always torturing enemies they capture for information, how can I make our adventure less macabre?

So I’m running the lost mines of Phandelver as a new DM and we’re about 5 sessions in. I’ve noticed a pattern that seems to repeat itself: the players defeat and capture an evil NPC character that knows some information, that character is tied up and intimidated/tortured, then that character inevitably spills the information it knows.

This cycle is getting a bit repetitive and depressing. How can I, as a DM, encourage my players to try more diverse ways of obtaining information from uncooperative NPCs without withholding story-critical information?