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A new user has posed this homebrew review question, which has gone through a ton of edits and is seemingly in a rollback war between users:

How would a major buffing ability effect challenge rating?

There is currently 1 answer to this question and it's premise stems substantially upon flawed information (hit points and full impacts of the Sporeshrooms being on the field) that was provided by the querent in an early revision, sort of codified by another user in a later revision, and contradicted several times by the original user as they workshop through the question. As a quasi-expert, I think it may have been appropriate to have inquired in greater detail about the information before posting an answer, however, that didn't happen.

I have asked several additional comments requesting the user to clarify the question. Personally, I feel these questions needed to be answered before any answer can be provided, but that's neither here nor there.

Regardless, the querent seeks to implement edits to address my comments and keeps getting rolled back to a version that preserves the validity of the existing answer.

In addition, they have attempted to open a new question to incorporate the revisions, but have been blocked there as well.

How would a major buff ability effect challenge rating (stat block modified)

How do we deal with this? I'm not sure our standard practices are appropriate nor fair here to the querent.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Mentioning here that the user also asked this question which was closed as well, which... Well, just thought I'd point out the user has been prevented both from editing the original question and from posting a new one \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ I may well be missing something, but revision 3 given by the querent does state that the sporecaps have 5 hit points. \$\endgroup\$
    – Someone_Evil Mod
    Mar 3, 2020 at 23:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Someone_Evil so that's how that came about. Gotcha. It's confusing enough with the number of changes on that hit point total that I'm really unsure what should be done on this. I've seen 10 HP, then 5, then 30, then I corrected it to 40 based on the math provided in the revision I was working under. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ If I'm not mistaken, the OP changed the hit points in revision 6, going from 5 to 30 \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2 they did, but that happened 8 hours after the first answer was posted. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ My rollbacks were not going back that far, either. but the recent changes are much larger so I went back to before those happened. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Mar 3, 2020 at 23:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch either way, I think we need to figure out a way to help out the new person workshop an answerable question that facilitates them using the site. Right now, I feel like they're running afoul of site policies that are enacted for people that have already had a question fully workshopped and thus had a chance to learn the process. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Someone_Evil thanks for the tag mention. I'm not super familiar with what's available on meta. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ Absolutely! I had tried to assist with linking to the meta about homebrew, but it may have been missed. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Mar 3, 2020 at 23:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch I think that might have worked were we helping someone with 101 rep, but less so for someone with 1. The question was closed originally due to a substantial lack of information in the question. It was reopened upon having a stat block edited in, but I'm not sure sufficient due diligence was done on that block to confirm sufficient information was provided. I would keep the original question closed for at least 24 hours to catch and incorporate all comments so that something is fully workshopped on this. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ Wow, I've created a real racket! \$\endgroup\$
    – Ben Hess
    Mar 4, 2020 at 16:48

3 Answers 3

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Go to Chat

I was thinking about this on the drive home and I think this question needs to go to chat to be fully workshopped. The OP is making responsive edits to the question because they're trying to address concerns as they're raised as opposed to thinking about the creature in a comprehensive manner when they post the question.

Typically we would direct them to GitP or another forum for that kind of workshopping, but I think we also do the same thing in chat rooms.

The original question should be rolled back to the revision that does not invalidate the existing question. The second question should remain closed as needing additional information; it can be re-opened once everything gets sorted in chat.

I expect the question may shift away from the impact of the specific feature on CR and towards figuring out an appropriate CR for the creature as a whole.

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I think your description is mistaken.

OP wrote that his sporecaps had 5hp, and received an answer which was predicated on this information. OP then changed his sporecaps to have 30hp and posted a comment on the answer asking: "Did i fix it? What is the CR now?"

You've written about this answer: "it's premise stems substantially upon flawed information", suggesting you think the answerer did not fully understand the question.

The answerer did fully understand the question. What is happening here is that OP modified the question in response to receiving an answer.

OP's question should be reverted to the form that received the answer. OP should be allowed to ask a new question.

I also sort of think that OP's edit rights should be revoked to prevent them from edit-warring. I recognize that's not likely to happen.

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    \$\begingroup\$ They should definitely be allowed to ask a follow-up, but they should still probably wait for more feedback and give themselves time to digest it and then make updates before asking for a new review . \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Mar 3, 2020 at 23:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think I misunderstood what the OP's intent may've been with that comment. I might've muddied the waters more than I'd intended when I corrected his hit point calculation since I didn't realize how mixed up this was when I made the edit. Maybe this is the better way to go, but I still think they need to be permitted to ask a question without an extended waiting period (typically we ask for a few days, maybe just limit it to 24 hours given most kinks are being worked out now anyways). \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2020 at 23:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ @pyrotechnical maybe if that was the only issue. But the current answer identifies a lot of other problems, and other answers may identify more. That process needs to happen and OP needs time to evaluate and rebuild. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Mar 3, 2020 at 23:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch that's a fair point. I'm going to upvote and wait to see if anything better comes along before giving a checkmark. I would like to give time for a mod to weigh in as well. Sometimes they have a different viewpoint that hasn't been considered. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 4, 2020 at 0:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ @pyrotechnical and as an aside, i really like the idea behind this monster. Lots of very interesting mechanics. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Mar 4, 2020 at 0:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch same, it's half the reason I'm pushing so hard on this. It's a good idea, but we gotta get the new person through the process so we can get a good answer. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 4, 2020 at 0:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ How do you recommend we roll back and to which edit? OP also needs to understand we're doing it so they don't undo the rollback, too. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Mar 4, 2020 at 0:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch The answer was for revision 4 and is somewhat invalidated by revision 6, so 5 would seem a good target if paired with communication to avoid demoralizing the OP. \$\endgroup\$
    – manveti
    Mar 4, 2020 at 0:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch I think Revision 5 makes the most sense as well, but see my revised answer below. I think this answer is mostly correct, but I think we need to send the OP to chat for workshopping. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 4, 2020 at 0:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ I'd love to upvote this, but the last paragraph puts me off: (a) we can't actually do this, shy of suspending them; (b) that seems pretty darn harsh unless someone's got a long history of really badly treating answerers in this manner. (Which, given the account's age of 3 days, I don't think is happening.) \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60 Mod
    Mar 4, 2020 at 1:02
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I think that these questions are fundamentally mis-specified, and are not properly stackable. This should never have been one question.

There is a serious mismatch between what the question is seeking, and the context in which it is sought. No amount of editing can fix that without fundamentally changing the question, which edits generally aren't supposed to do.

The "main" question regarding how specific buffs would affect challenge rating is pretty easy to answer, as CR calculations leave little room for guesswork. To be maximally stackable, this question could be applied to an existing entry in the Monster Manual. That entry could be granted the potential buff, and then people could describe how that buff would impact CR. Easy! Well, perhaps not easy, but clear.

The greater problem is that this question is simultaneously a homebrew review question. Questions about the specific features of this homebrew creation simply don't mesh with what the posted question purports to be: an examination of how a specific buff should affect CR.

As people try to balance those incongruent aims, we end up with clarifications to the text of the question that have no relevance to the "canonical" question being posed. It's fundamentally difficult to define how feature Y would impact creature X when X itself is so malleable. We also have issues of people making incontrovertible fixes, like correcting typos, while also introducing other, less clear changes, and then having edits rolled back, re-introducing elements which are unarguably errors.

The fix: Ask two questions.

This question should be split. One question about a standard MM entry with this special homebrew buff added. We'll all have a stable, agreed-upon starting point and so would be able to analyze and discuss what sort of relationship this summon-buffing should have with CR.

A second question about this homebrewed Toadstool monster would allow for the standard homebrew review approach to work. Indeed, the homebrew review might even be more answerable with the summon-buffing mechanic better defined in a linked question.


tl;dr: Both of these questions should be deleted, and replaced with at least two questions properly formulated for this stack.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm a bit confused. The mechanic in question involves a specific creature's ability to spawn specific other creatures and these summons increase its power. The effects of the mechanic are greatly determined by the survivability of the summons, how would one apply this to any generic monster most of which don't summon anything? \$\endgroup\$ Mar 5, 2020 at 18:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2 My reasoning is that if the buffs-through-summoning mechanic is expected to have some impact on a creature's CR, then grafting that mechanic onto a creature that is more familiar to users, and whose balancing issues are better understood, will be superior in isolating the effects of that custom mechanic on CR in general. Sort of like recalculating CR when a monster is given more HP or better weapons. By homebrewing the monster and the ability, we ran into issues debating how the CR was calculated in the first place while also trying to evaluate the effect of the mechanic. \$\endgroup\$
    – Upper_Case
    Mar 5, 2020 at 18:07

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