“Well that’s just stupid”

The party finds an odd-looking potted plant. The berries that grow from it heal for 1D4 + CON, and it usually has about 5 berries on it a day. Now, your players have an excuse to carry a potted plant around.

Definitely using this old gem soon…

I feel so called out right now.

Real Analysis Professor, regarding a mistake in a proof on the blackboard. (via mathprofessorquotes)

The Very Hungry Rust Monster is a mini-comic I made a few years back. I’ve seen it floating around Tumblr without attribution recently, so I’ve uploaded a higher-resolution version, properly credited.

THIS IS BRILLIANT!

Hey, there it is! This is my favorite comic on this hellsite.

I’m gonna read this to my kids for their bedtime story tonight

Iron Heart Surge

“I just feel so dead inside…”

“Dead inside, you say? I know something that might just work”

reanimate my will to live

Wake me up inside

you gotta like…. put the fun in ‘funeral speech’

I knew we should have killed you too

Sorry, Cassius, I should have listened to you.

wow way to kill the fun, guys

We’re honorable men. We killed it for the good of Rome.

Masahiro Sawada  -  http://www.masahirosawada.com  -  https://vimeo.com/user9569734  -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/masahiro-sawada-70208777

Under D&D rules, a dagger does 1d4 base damage. The average human has a Strength score of 10, adding no bonuses. Several of them, due to the military background of many, likely had strength or dexterity scores of 11-14. But only two or three, and quite a few would be frail with old age, sinking to 8-9 strength. All in all, we can only add a total of +1 damage per round from Brutus.

An estimate of sixty men were involved in Caesar’s actual murder. Not the wider conspiracy, but the stabbing.

Julius Caesar was a general, which is generally depicted as a 10th level fighter. Considering his above baseline constitution and dex, weakened by his probable history of malaria, epilepsy, and/or strokes (-1 dex modifier), and lack of armor at the time of the event, he would likely have something along the lines of AC 9 and 60 HP. The senators would likely hit him roughly 55% the time.

So the Roman senate had a damage-per-round of 66, more than enough to kill Caesar in one round even without factoring in surprise round advantage.

Now THESE are the kind of statistics I wanna see!

Caesar’s body received 23 stab wounds; with average damage of 2.5 per dagger thrust we’d be up to 57.5 damage from that so the math checks out if they had better-than-average luck or if at least one of them had some ability roughly analogous to sneak attack

Ah, you’re forgetting - we should expect that about one in every ten hits will be a critical.[1] Assuming average damage rolls across the board and the two criticals we should expect from around twenty attacks, we find that Caesar is reduced to negative hit points. If we suppose a net positive strength modifier[2] or a rogue among the attackers[3], then caesar would already be unconscious by the time the last dagger landed, enabling a coup de grace and ensuring that he would not recover

Of course, those numbers are based on the assumption that Caesar was merely a general. It is important to remember that he was also Pontifex Maximus, the highest priestly role in Roman religious life and probably at least a 10th-level cleric. This gives him another 50 or so hit points, and allows him to cast magic vestment for a +2 to armor class even when not wearing armor. (This explains why only 23 of the 60 attackers hit! His armor class wasn’t nine, it was twelve!)

Of course, a 20th-level character could absolutely slaughter the roman senate if given a chance to act, which suggests that Caesar was killed in the surprise round. This would require 110 damage done in 23 dagger strikes, implying that the average attacker had greater than a +2 bonus to damage. This could be achieved with 13 total dice of sneak attack and a couple points of net strength mod from the younger senators. This suggests about half the attackers had at least one level in rogue.[4] [1] If one is required to roll to confirm criticals, then the chance of a critical conditional on scoring a hit is equal to the chance to threaten a critical, which for a dagger is 10% [2] This seems quite likely! More than half the senate missed Caesar, and we would expect a bias toward the stronger senators hitting. (since strength is added to attack rolls) This suggests that so long as strength modifiers had a non-uniform distribution, even with a zero average strength modifier in the senate would imply a positive average modifier among those who landed blows. [3] My money is on Casca, who won initiative (suggestive of a high DEX) and used the advantage of surprise to attack Caesar’s vitals - the very definition of a sneak attack! [4] Or that there were some higher-level rogues in the mix. Again, my money is on Casca.

Melkor: *goes against Manwe’s will*

Iluvatar: It’s all according to the divine design

Melkor: *tries to destroy Arda multiple times*

Iluvatar: It’s part of the plan

Melkor: *basically tries to take Iluvatar’s place*

Iluvatar: Still part to the plan

Melkor: I’m gonna deStROY YOUR PLAnN-

Iluvatar: All according to-

Melkor: AAAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhHHHHH

‪For your consideration: The PhD journey as Fellowship of the Rings‬