Tag: work

How does the Fighter’s Interception style work against attacks with multiple damage types? [duplicate]

The Fighter’s Interception fighting style reads:

When a creature you can see hits a target, other than you, within 5 feet of you with an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage the target takes by 1d10 + your proficiency bonus (to a minimum of 0 damage).

How does this work against attacks that deal more than one type of damage? Does it matter if the extra damage is "gated" behind a failed saving throw?

How does the Transmuted Spell metamagic work with Flames of Phlegethos?

In Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything there’s a new meta magic option that reads

Transmuted Spell
When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder.

and I’m wondering how this would interact with the secondary part of Flames of Phlegethos

Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage, you can cause flames to wreathe you until the end of your next turn. The flames don’t harm you or your possessions, and they shed bright light out to 30 feet and dim light for an additional 30 feet. While the flames are present, any creature within 5 feet of you that hits you with a melee attack takes 1d4 fire damage.

If I cast green flame blade, a spell that deals fire damage, then transmute the type to say acid, would the flames still trigger? If not would that mean that casting Booming Blade and changing its type to fire would trigger the flames?

For clarity, the part I’m unsure on is that they both say "when(ever) you cast a spell…", which doesn’t really offer any clarity on which would actually take effect first.

NMinimize differential evolution: how do search points and initial points really work?

I am puzzled by the settings of a specific method for NMinimize called DifferentialEvolution, given for example here. The settings include both "SearchPoints", or the size of the population of evolving points, and "InitialPoints", or the initial population(?). What I don’t quite understand is that "SearchPoints" can be set to a value different from the number of specified "InitialPoints" and NMinimize will often happily proceed, and sometimes it won’t.

What might be happening under the hood? If there are less "InitialPoints" than there are "SearchPoints", will the population be filled up with random points to meet the specified number of "SearchPoints" before evolution begins or does it proceed with a population that is in fact smaller than "SearchPoints"? What about the opposite case?

Here is an example where we give much less "InitialPoints" than there are "SearchPoints".

Clear[f, c, v, x1, x2, y1, y2, y3]; f = 2 x1 + 3 x2 + 3 y1/2 + 2 y2 - y3/2; c = {x1^2 + y1 == 5/4, x2^(3/2) + 3 y2/2 == 3, x1 + y1 <= 8/5,     4 x2/3 + y2 <= 3, y3 <= y1 + y2, 0 <= x1 <= 10, 0 <= x2 <= 10,     0 <= y1 <= 1, 0 <= y2 <= 1,     0 <= y3 <= 1, {y1, y2, y3} \[Element] Integers}; v = {x1, x2, y1, y2, y3};  NMinimize[{f, c}, v, Method -> "DifferentialEvolution"] (*{7.66718, {x1 -> 1.11803, x2 -> 1.31037, y1 -> 0, y2 -> 1, y3 -> 1}}*)  points = 5; searchpoints = 50; listpoints = {RandomReal[{0, 10}, points],  RandomReal[{0, 10}, points], RandomReal[{0, 1}, points],  RandomReal[{0, 1}, points],  RandomReal[{0, 1}, points]}\[Transpose];  NMinimize[{f, c}, v,   Method -> {"DifferentialEvolution", "SearchPoints" -> searchpoints,  "InitialPoints" -> listpoints}] (*{7.66718, {x1 -> 1.11803, x2 -> 1.31037, y1 -> 0, y2 -> 1, y3 -> 1}}*)

If there are more "InitialPoints" than there are "SearchPoints", NMinimize sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, depending on the value of the random seed for instance.

How does the targeting of the Protection from Evil and Good spell work with an Intellect Devourer’s Body Thief action?

The Intellect Devourer’s Body Thief action specifies:

A protection from evil and good spell cast on the body drives the intellect devourer out.

However, the protection from evil and good spell can only target a creature, not the body in particular. How do I reconcile this difference? Can I assume that targeting a creature equates to targeting its body?

Does a bronze dragon’s wing attack work underwater?

An adult bronze dragon has a lair deep inside of a coastal mountain. To get to where she hides her stuff (and where she is keeping a clutch of eggs warm) an adventuring party needs to swim deep underwater, then through a water-filled passageway, and then up to emerge on the surface of a lake inside of the mountain (they end up inside a very large dome, roughly).

If the dragon detects them before they surface, and leaps into the water (she has a swimming speed of 40) can she successully use her wing attack (a Legendary Action) against the party while fighting underwater?

The dragon beats its wings. Each creature within 10 feet of the dragon must succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw or take 14 (2d6 + 7) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The dragon can then fly up to half its flying speed.

My instinct is that she cannot use the wing attack, and I don’t think that she can "fly" in the water (for half of her flying speed) by beating her wings. Whether or not dragons swim by using their wings, or if they move more like a sea serpant, is unclear but I tend to believe the latter.

Underwater Combat rules leave me little to work with. The restrictions are

When making a melee weapon attack, a creature that doesn’t have a swimming speed (either natural or granted by magic) has disadvantage on the attack roll unless the weapon is a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident. A ranged weapon attack automatically misses a target beyond the weapon’s normal range. Even against a target within normal range, the attack roll has disadvantage unless the weapon is a crossbow, a net, or a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart). Creatures and objects that are fully immersed in water have resistance to fire damage. (Basic Rules, Ch 9, p. 80)

She has a swimming speed, so her tail attack or her bite attack are not at disadvantage. Her Wing attack doesn’t seem to be either of those to attack categories since it requires a dexterity saving throw.

Does the dragon lose her ability to use that legendary action, Wing Attack, if she is fighting underwater?

(While I am also puzzling over what ‘prone’ means when somoene is swimming underwater, I don’t need that answered for the purposes of this question)

minimum bounding ellipsoid example does not work in 12.1.1.0

I am surprised that WRI never checks previous examples before shipping new versions. The following example is mentioned and highlighted on the webpage. It does not work in 12.1.1.0 and as far as I remember it used to work in older version 12.0 perhaps. Does someone else has trouble running this example with a fresh kernel. I have filed a bug report nevertheless Case number 4696657

https://www.wolfram.com/language/12/convex-optimization/minimal-bounding-ellipsoid.html?product=mathematica

I get this output below:

enter image description here

Curse of Strahd for 2 Players, How to work with ressurection from a Story perspective [closed]

I plan rn with 2 of my best friends to play Curse of Strahd, 2 of them as players and me obviously as the DM.

I know that the Game is intendet to have 4-6 Players and not 2. I let them start at lvl 3 and max level will me 12 to 14.

But they will die probably since i don’t want to make it a cakewalk obviously, and i want to use a "either you let your character die and must make a new one, or you ressurect yourself and have to roll to recieve either a random dark gift or a madness you roll." every time they die.

But i am not sure yet how to make in RP, my first idea is that i let them wake up as Ghosts on a misty field where Strahd shows up and gives them a deal to ressurect them so they could die in the future for his amusement, but i also don’t want to reveal Strahd to fast, so i thought that maybe like a ghostly figur or some type of demon makes these ressurection deals, or this could be Strahd but in disguise to fool them, or not to reveal his intendity to fast. But i am not sure if that would be in character for Strahd because i want this "Ressurection dealer" be really cocky to the Characters.

Can someone give me some advice?