Before We Get Started - Play-by-Post

[Steerpike]

I wanted to provide some information on how the game will go before we get started.

First - about dice rolling. Since we don't have a built-in dice roller, we're going to use the one at Online Dice Roller · Home . I can create a room there, and it will keep track of all the rolls that have taken place. Go there and click on "Dice Room" in the upper right-hand corner.

Use your forum name or character name as the Nickname.

There are two rooms - MSTest1 and DE2013. Use the MSTest1 room to play around with the roller, if you like. The DE2013 room is the official room for in-game rolls. That site will log all rolls that take place in that room.

Once you have made a roll, you can report the results here (and they will be logged on the site so anyone can see them). Alternatively, instead of reporting the results yourself, you can click on the d20 icon to the left of your name on the line that shows your dice result. Then, you can paste the bottom line here, as an image (choose insert image from your message options and put the URL there), and you'll see something like the following:

 

[Steerpike]

As you can see, I rolled an 18 in the Test room, above. If you join the room you will see that roll. It may take some getting used to, but hopefully people will get the hang of it in short order.

As a general rule, dice rolls will be public. These include player rolls and GM rolls. All will be in the Official room. In some cases, however, I may make secret rolls. For example, suppose a character wanders near a trap and I want to give him a chance of spotting it, even though the player hasn't indicated he is looking for it. I may roll without saying anything, because if I ask the player to roll then even if the roll fails the player is alerted to the fact that something is going on, when they should really have no knowledge of it. We will keep these things to a minimum, and most rolls will be open.

When it comes to posting in the game thread, I will try to post at least once in a 24-hour period and leave the intervening time for players to post their actions. In general, I will move the action forward even if players haven't acted yet at the end of that time period. The reason for this is that play-by-post games die in a hurry if you're getting to the point where two or three days pass while waiting for a player to act. If you miss a post, it won't generally be catastrophic. If you're in combat, we will assume your character continues to fight his target, or another nearby target, though for you casters I won't be making spell casting decisions - if you miss a turn you'll probably end up attacking with a mundane weapon.

We will not use initiative in the game. Once I have made a post that players can respond to, you can respond in any order. In some cases, if I happen to be around, I may post again after one player in order to address their actions, even if others haven't acted yet. This won't be done in situations where it will impair the actions of other characters, but outside of combat I expect things to flow somewhat organically and not worry too much about who is acting and when.

In combat, I typically will not resolve the character actions until everyone has acted. A combat round is about six seconds in my game, and if one player stated that they are going to cut an orc's head off, typically other players will have to indicate their actions before they find out whether the orc's head did indeed fall. There is little time in the heat of a combat round to stand around and watch your comrades.

Please post your actions in narrative form, and use quotation marks to indicate anything said by the character. If you have Out-of-Character (OOC) comments, questions, and so on, please use double parentheses ((like this, for example)) to make it very plain you are making an OOC comment.

Although we will all be reading the same post, keep in mind that your character can only react to what he see, hears, or otherwise perceives.

I will be posting maps when needed. Some combat encounters will have them; some may rely only on the 'theater of the mind.' If you intend to move on a map, please refer to the number and direction of squares or feet you wish to move, using your starting place as a reference. That way I can be sure to move your avatar to the appropriate position when the map is updated.

I'm sure there will be questions as we go. Feel free to post them here. Also, feel free to test out the dice roller and post the results in this thread.

 

[Sparkie]

Like this?

 

[Steerpike]

Yes. But let me see if I can create a room with a unique name, so that you can use your own nickname instead of mine. That will make things more clear.

Use your own nickname, but for the room type in MSTest1, and see if that works better.

 

[Sparkie]

Looks good to me.

 

[Steerpike]

Looks good to me.

Awesome. Thanks for checking that out. I updated my original post to reflect the new "official" room. I chose a name no one else is likely to take, so we should be good.

When posting your results in-game, you can use either your character name or your MS forum name as your Nickname.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Awesome sauce!

Also, I'm glad my lousy roll was "just practice." No, I mean, it really was... cuz it's the test room.

 

[Phietadix]

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Seems simple enough.

 

[Ireth]

Cool beans. ^^

 

[Sparkie]

Aw! Everyone rolled higher than me!

 

[Ankari]

Ha!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

What a good time to use up a lousy roll. Congratulations!

(Not that a past roll has any effect on future rolls, but still… sometimes it's fun to be superstitious!)

 

[Ireth]

Aw, crud. It says under Classes that my "hit dice" is a d10 for a Knight, but I rolled a d20... should I roll again? And I haven't the foggiest clue how to work the modifiers or anything...

 

[Steerpike]

d20 is right, Ireth. Just add your DEX modifier to the roll

 

[Sparkie]

For those of you who, like me, didn't figure this out in time, here's a basic example of adding modifers in the dice room.

Say I'm a 1st level fighter with a STR modifier of 2, and an attack bonus of +1. This is what you'd type into the top bar in the dice room for an attack roll: 1D20+2+1

Here's the result:



That's probbably a miss, but let's pretend it's a hit. Let's roll damage. A longsword will cause D8 damage, plus your STR modifier. This is what you'd type into the top bar in the dice room: 1D8+2

This is the result:



Not bad. Hope you find this useful!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

We also add our character level though, don't we? No.

So 1d20 +0 (level 1 barbarian to-hit bonus) +3 (str mod) +2 (because I was charging! -4 to armor if I miss though, so I took a risk since my DEX mod is more like a SUX mod.)

So in my actual roll from last night (without mods added in) I actually ROLLED A 24! EAT THAT, FISH-BREATH!


Also... for my 2h sword, would I roll 2d6 with the same mods (+0+3+2)? (Watch me roll snake eyes.)

Steerpike, let us know if you want us to roll just the d20, damage, or what.



EDIT - I realized that we don't add our level, but we add the to-hit bonus for our class level. I may throw in +0 so when I promote to Lv.2 I remember that something goes there.

 

[Steerpike]

Hey guys. In my eagerness to get started I forgot my planned sticky thread on basic combat rules and how-tos for other aspects o the game. /facepalm

You guys are doing well. I'll get that info up ASAP! Then we'll move into the next round with the fish men.

 

[Ankari]

Hey Steer,

I didn't see any class that gets a to dual wield. Am I missing something?

 

[Steerpike]

Hey Steer,

I didn't see any class that gets a to dual wield. Am I missing something?

Anyone can dual wield, subject to the applicable penalties. A Fighter can do it at level 4 without any penalty, using Combat Dominance (that's how I've interpreted it for flavor, for people who want to dual-wield). Same with Barbarians and whirlwind attack. I think the Monk is the only character that explicitly gets a main-hand and off-hand attack.

What I've done in the past as a house-rule for other character classes is lessen the penalties as the character levels, IF they've been fighting with two weapons all along, to reflect their improved ability to fight that way.

In 3.X D&D, you also see hefty penalties for dual-wielding at low level, but it is mitigated with feats as the character progresses, so I do something similar, though without feats, if the character's actions justify it.

 

[SeverinR]

Ok, these were test rolls to learn how to do it.
If someone suddenly gets a sharp pain in their back, it wasn't me. Really...ok, the second one probably bounced off the targe anyway lol