decomposers turn organic material from corpses into simpler nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. for example, proteins are broken down into amino acids, which then decompose into ammonium and nitrates. these nutrients are absorbed into soil and consumed by plants

tldr: plants eat corpses after decomposers turn them into nutrients

if it was torturous then nobody would bother learning instruments

the only impulsive part of this acquisition is how willing you seem to be to give up. just try it again. and then if you're not satisfied by how it's going, that's an excellent excuse to do it again. and the cycle repeats until one day, you are satisfied by how it's going

yes, you're definitely right. the accuracy is dubious no matter what. in the author's words, their approach is "semi-scientific" and "guesstimating". not once do they say their results are definitive. but if it's the best qualified demographers can do with what we know, then there's not much else to it

not op but i think your skepticism is justified

this seems to be where the image originally came from. the author explains the challenges with making speculations about historical populations in that post. the demographers, toshiko kaneda and carl haub, estimated 117 billion people have lived over the last 200,000 years. here's the explanation given on the original post:

The majority of them lived very short lives: about one in two children died in the past. When conditions are so very poor and children die so quickly then the birth rate has to be extremely high to keep humanity alive; Kaneda and Haub assume a birth rate of 80 births per 1000 people per year for most of humanity’s history (up to the year 1 CE). That is a rate of births that is about 8-times higher than in a typical high-income country and more than twice as high as in the poorest countries today (see the map). The past was a very different place.

i think this is fairly reasonable, but original source is necessary. i think this is a more original source, and kaneda and haub are listed as the authors. their methodology seems to rely a lot on guessing, which makes sense. the 117 billion is probably not entirely accurate, but i'd say it's a good attempt at estimating given what we know. there might be a more detailed paper somewhere but i didn't really look too hard

edit: also lot of hostility from other people here.. lemmy gone downhill. i think there's nothing wrong with being skeptical of data or science, even if it's coming from qualified experts. unless there's a detailed paper that explains EVERY step of their process, you can't be entirely sure where their numbers are coming from. that said, i agree with those other guys that there's not a lot of room to be skeptical in this particular case, since the authors explicitly say it's a rough estimate. based on what we know, it's as accurate as we can get. but still, nothing wrong with asking for sources!

holy too thin to tap on!

mahler's instrumentation is consistently massive but usually has normal instruments. i think only the sixth is particularly strange with the hammer, and the next weirdest symphony might be the seventh with its mandolin, guitar, cowbells, etc. his fourth could also be considered weird since it's scored for an unusually small orchestra, especially for a mahler symphony. pretty sure he never used a bag of sticks, but yeah mahler can still be crazy. only really rivaled by strauss imo. strauss's Alpine Symphony is probably the most insane thing i've ever seen performed, for me beating mahler 2 and 3 (though i still like them more overall)

which, judging by this post, is also a bad pr move

had to take it before someone else on my instance got there first

i see, that makes sense. i'd say that it's on the player playing this cleric to not use the ability in a stupid way, since it obviously has catastrophic consequences for everything nearby, but i could totally see it being used in combat to try (and fail) to shut down the encounter. do you think this could be fixed by allowing combat to continue within the dream, with the added stakes that dying in the dream means dying in real world? and of course taking damage in real world allows you to wake up. this way, even if the ability is used, those who fall unconscious still can fight for their lives against the other unconscious people while simultaneously trying to escape to return to their vulnerable bodies.

thanks! this is really helpful.

you're correct that the mechanics are overly specific for this setting. this subclass was made for a homebrew setting and fits that lore accordingly, so i don't expect it to be adaptable to any other world. the subconscious realm as a whole is pretty important in my campaign since i basically use it as a plot device for lore drops and stuff. i think in that context, abilities like Partial Delve make more sense since there's an actual reason to go there.

i really appreciate your suggestions and will definitely use them to make the subclass more mechanically sound. thanks again

thank you so much for this feedback! i think i know how to fix some of these, but i'm still very unsure

1. i think i'll keep Subliminal Affinity unchanged. it's powerful in social contexts, but i think that's exactly what i want this cleric to good at

2. i don't really know how to fix Repose while keeping it related to making others fall asleep. i have a couple ideas, but i'd like it to be more interesting than just casting sleep. will keep working on

3. i envision Partial Delve being an alternative to normal long rests. i think it can be made useful by cutting down the time dilation a bit, so 1 hour in subconscious = 8 hours instead of 12 hours. i want it to be distinct from just casting dream because in lore, the subconscious realm isn't just dreamland. it's a physical dimension with actual inhabitants. someone who knows this can use it for their advantage, using it for information gathering and such. i'd like to make it more mechanically interesting though

4. i will keep Memory Palace the same

5. Dreamcaster is definitely what i'm most concerned about. what you said about the party just killing the unconscious enemy is a great point, and i think i can fix it by making the feature less controllable. most of the overpowered uses of the ability could probably be fixed if you cannot select certain creatures to remain unaffected. so if you use the ability, then ALL creatures within 300 ft. must make the wis save or fall unconscious, including allies. the ability already forced the cleric to also remain unconscious to maintain the dream, so i just clarified this a bit. here's the new version of Dreamcaster, which i think might still be pretty busted if used correctly but less reliably overpowered:

At 17th level, you can not only access the Subconscious Realm, but force others to enter it. All living creatures within 300 ft. of you must make a Wisdom saving throw; those who fail immediately fall unconscious unless they are undead or immune to being charmed. You also fall unconscious, and you cannot allow specific creatures to remain unaffected. You, alongside every creature who fails the save, enter a shared dream in the Subconscious Realm for up to six hours (48 real hours), where the targets are unable to move, speak, or take actions unless you allow them.

During this time, you can shape the environment of the dream, creating landscapes, objects, and other images. You can choose to end the dream at any time, but if you exit the Subconscious Realm this way, then all other creatures immediately wake up. You also suffer one level of exhaustion if the dream is prematurely terminated this way.

Although the targets cannot take actions, they can repeat their Wisdom save on each of their turns. If a creature escapes the dream by succeeding the Wisdom save, then they jolt awake with little to no recollection of the Subconscious, only remembering fleeting images and fractured memories. If they exit the Subconscious because six hours passed or because you prematurely ended the dream, then they retain all memories.

You can use this feature again by completing a long rest after exiting the Subconscious.

thanks, glad is hear Chain Slaughter seems interesting. it was definitely fun to port it from lore into mechanics

dang i wish my players discussed the game outside sessions

this is the kind of news i want to see more often

reject natural language, return to toki pona

well fuck

No, because that would imply that infinity has an end. 0.999… = 1 because there are an infinite number of 9s. There isn’t a last 9, and therefore the decimal is equal to 1. Because there are an infinite number of 9s, you can’t put an 8 or 7 at the end, because there is literally no end. The principle of 0.999… = 1 cannot extend to the point point where 0 = 1 because that’s not infinity works.

Strange. I’ve never had problems with it and it’s always solved browser issues on ios for me.

Orion browser on IOS supports firefox extensions, including uBlock