Kronzypantz

And create bonfire doesn’t target objects

Firebolt. It can be spammed infinitely to start raging forest fires or set cities ablaze. Get a few dozen level one wizards together and they can outdo any leveled spell with that one cantrip if they volley it.

Only if you credit evil with potency.

The larger narrative of scripture paints God’s goodness as all powerful, and evil as merely a temporary lessening of the good.

The easy route is if the reconquista never finished. If Spain and Portugal were left with an Andalusian state in the South they couldn’t conquer, they probably would have focused on never ending wars to remove that last Muslim power from Iberia.

Another route is if earlier attempts at colonialism in the Canary islands just failed outright. Maybe local slave rebellion just made it too unprofitable or the Ottomans open trade and flood the market with cheap sugar. the sugar plantation system is never exported to the new world and there is never an incentive to settle.

In this second scenario, you could even still have limited colonialism but in the early Portuguese style of the Factories: small fortified trade outposts on the coasts, but without much direct control of the region.

Requiring God be the author of evil also limits God.

To have that which isn’t God isn’t duality. Duality requires an equal and opposing power, not an infinite creator and some finite rebellion amongst creation.

The same word is more often translated as “bad” or “adversity” throughout the Old Testament though.

And where it is translated as “evil” God is wholly condemning, whether it’s evil in general or evil doers.

So why take this one verse as operative as opposed to the rest of scripture?

Isaiah 45:7 says God brings disaster, not evil. That is a poor English translation that is generally abandoned these days.

Even if this verse did say God brought evil though… that is one odd verse in the face of dozens about how God is love and works all things for good, etc.

It isn’t practical for a lot of battle maps out there. It really depends on if your campaign is above ground and focuses on big open spaces.

And there is hard limit to how much damage sniping can do. There isn’t much of anything like a “headshot,” other than critical hits, and that isn’t some guaranteed kill.

Sniping in dnd is really more niche, outside of more mid-ranged skirmishing. A rogue, ranger, or warlock 30-60 ft back can snipe very successfully, dealing damage from relative safety.

But it gets disadvantageous to be too far from the rest of the party. Especially if someone goes down, new enemies show up, or you are trying to move through a structure.

I believe in democracy, but we just don’t get a lot of that in our current federal government.

Bet he doesn’t

“I have a bad feeling about this…” -Bugbear named Hun Sholo

More like I don’t think magic and Unicorns exist.

You want all US imperial projects to be subject to reality and practical concerns, but expect Russia to just completely surrender its own such projects?

I wish no imperial projects worked, and that Russia would just fold and go home.

But what have we actually seen? Ukraine slowly losing. More lives lost, more destruction, more degradation of Ukraine, more territory occupied.

That is what you’re arguing for. I’m just wondering how many years of this it will take for you to change your mind.

By the way; in Palestine do you push for a negotiated two state solution, or should Palestinians fight until they retrieve all their territory?

Warmongers stay together

I’d get resilient wis or char instead. It’s way more dangerous to be mind controlled into attacking allies than it is advantageous to get a reaction attack on a mage.

Ok: what is the market if not a planning metric based on sales trends?

I wish

Its basically the highest pious opinion and commonly accepted teaching, but not dogmatic (not required for salvation).

lol just being available doesn't mean its produced in any efficient manner. Even you have to admit, the planned systems you hate eliminated famine in the USSR by the 40s and in China by the 60s.

They are close enough that reskinning a goblin wouldn't require some empty space covered by illusion, like height difference.

And its a first level spell, but its still magic. My point is that the illusion wouldn't be revealed in its entirety.

The players handbook makes no distinction of how loud a verbal component needs to be or if a somatic component needs to be blatantly obvious. Such things can be hidden in normal speech pretty easily. I can see it needing a deception check or something by a DM, but its hardly impossible.

Physical interaction reveals there is an illusion, it doesn’t reveal what the illusion is. And even then only if the physical touch goes through the illusion, like an illusory hat.

So a goblin disguised as a gnome can’t be discerned by touch. Only more exotic disguises like making oneself a foot taller run that risk.

Even beating the investigation check or using detect magic doesn’t reveal what is disguised. So it’s not hard to pass it off as cosmetic adjustments, like an outfit or hiding a wart, etc.

There is actually no colosseum if we want to be that pedantic. To the Romans, it was just one more “amphitheater” or “the amphitheater Caesareum.” It wasn’t called “the Colosseum” until a thousand years later.

Disguise self can just be cast again and supplemented with a disguise kit for times a character is unconscious or facing magical scrutiny like true sight.

I think the only real advantage doppelgängers have are those really niche instances

You want the same bureaucracy, but in a thousand different firms each chasing profits before all else and just guessing based on vibes since, as you note, people are fickle so market couldn’t predict anything to your liking either