Yes, rogue could have a 100% chance of success. Obviously their chance isn’t going to get any better than that, seems like an odd thing to bring up as a counter point though.

As for your suggested explanations for the assistance, none of that lines up with it being at worst non-impactful to do a paired group check. The rogue is completely unimpeded by helping the paladin, and in situations where their chance isn’t already 100% they might even have a better chance, since any possibility for success from the paladin could potentially cover a failure from the rogue. If the rogue only fails on a 3 or less and the paladin needs a 19, that raises the success rate from 85% alone to 86.5% with the paladin tagging along.

Even it was a group comprised entirely of equally skilled rogues I don’t think it makes sense to make them more stealthy in groups, which is what this rule does, for the simple fact that larger groups of people are enormously easier to spot.

If the simple fact that literally any pairing of two people is more stealthy then either of them alone isn’t enough reason to not use this rule for stealth then I don’t know what is.

So what, exactly, is the justification for how a rogue “covers for” a plate wearing paladin with no dex bonus? Keep in mind that that “half must succeed” rule means the rogue is very slightly more likely to succeed with a noisy partner than alone, assuming that success and failure are possible outcomes for both participants. Even if it’s impossible for the other to succeed the rogue is at worst unimpeded.

The 2024 rules specifically clarify that stealth is not typically a suitable skill to be rolled in such a way.

Could be something other than D&D. +18 is pretty easily achievable in mid-level Pathfinder 2e.

That’s not a complaint specific to discord though. You just don’t like large chatrooms.

I won’t stand for this PowerShell superhero comic erasure.

Alternatively you allow that line of reasoning but subsequently require that they spend hours searching every room they enter multiple times.

I’m okay with a DM ruling that it’s possible to cast it in such a way that someone is taken off guard, sure. Maybe a performance or deception vs hostile creature(s) insight rather than the typical stealth vs perception when determining surprise from sneaking, which is not RAW, but I think sounds reasonable. I’d definitely not consider it to be an automatic aspect of the spell at any table I ran.

And you absolutely could not avoid a fight and just walk away from the situation with plausible deniability because you “only insulted them”.

Ignoring the actual rules and mechanics is basically step one in almost every “isn’t this goofy” D&D anecdote.

Not only is it not “decent damage” (even the buff it got in 5.5 just brings it from “the worst” to “poor”), it’s also not a subtle thing you can just drop on someone unsuspectingly.

Spellcasting for an attack is an obvious aggressive action, which means an initiative roll comes first to see if you even manage to get it off before they clock you. It’s also not like everyone around just shrugs and lets you go about your business because all you did was hurl an insult. You attacked someone with an offensive spell, the response is exactly the same as if you threw a firebolt at them

The flavor of insulting someone to death is fun, I’ll grant that, but there’s nothing special about Vicious Mockery mechanically that makes it immune to initiative order or people noticing what you’re doing.

Everybody’s saying that the Scatman stutters but doesn’t ever stutter when he sings.

It’s a checkbox in the installer, easy to miss. Has defaulted to off for a very long time now, basically ever since SSDs have been commonplace.

The default depends on your storage. It has defaulted to not load on startup for me any time I’ve installed it to an SSD.

Jellyfin has some security issues that, depending on who you ask, are either critical vulnerabilities that make it completely unsafe to expose to the Internet or largely unconcerning for regular users.

I had exactly the same experience, at about the same time. Had been hearing good things about Plex so decided to try it out. Immediately noped out when it required me to create an account with them. Similar to you I looked around and found it to be a relatively new change.

Frankly baffling to me that anyone with the wherewithal to self-host was okay with it.

Generally speaking it’s considered bad practice for a GM to call for rolls that literally no one in the party can succeed at, but as with anything in tabletop roleplaying there is nuance.

There could be a narrative reason for the player to not know just how difficult something is and you don’t want to give it away by just telling the players they can’t succeed. If the most capable member of the party rolls a 20 and fails then the “reward” is the narrative of the attempt and learning what you’re up against.

Or maybe someone in the party could succeed but for whatever reason the child-prodigy wizard with a strength of 8 wants to try lifting the portcullis. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to actually do it.

…are you calling first person shooters “shmups”?

OP doesn’t seem to have responded, so no, but that’s not the fault of the question.

Because of the XY problem. The problem OP is stating may not actually be the source of the issues OP is experiencing.

Finding out what OP is trying to do will better inform a solution and may make the stated problem irrelevant.

Exactly this. I had a character go to a brothel in a campaign I ran. I just said okay, you go to the brothel and have whatever you consider a good time. No further detail or RP was requested or required.

Definitely did not expect Konsi doing a Street Fighter 6 Cammy cosplay.