This is the official discussion thread for the Rise of a Regent Campaign.
We'll use this thread for offline discussion (player/GM questions, rules discussions, etc.) as well as for all of our startup information (player character creation, links to general information for the campaign, etc.)
I'll start with some basic information:
* This is NOT an official Pathfinder Society Campaign (that probably didn't need to be mentioned), though I will be using the pathfinder rule set.
* The setting for the campaign is an old D&D world called Norwold, I will have maps and information up soon. Keep in mind this is not in the pathfinder universe and thus the pathfinder factions and such are not in play. This is also NOT in any 'official' D&D world either (Mystara, Forgotten Realms, Birthright, etc.) so don't expect to be meeting Drizzt Do'Urden on the road...and don't try to apply a particular political agenda to any lands you might recognize.
* I AM using the pathfinder Deity selection in case it matters to any of you.
* Characters should be generated at level 1 (exceptions notified) and should use standard basic rules for starting gold and other character selections.
* We will be using the point buy system from the pathfinder rules for stat creation, 20 points base.
* Starting character ages will be pre-prepared for each player character. It is important that your characters start at the ages I give you because of the timeline of the campaign.
* I would appreciate it if everyone could use the pathfinder character spreadsheet found at: Pathfinder Character Spreadsheets (the sCoreGen-b40 spreadsheet, and for you casters needing to manage your spells you can use the adVance-b24 spreadsheet). This should make it much easier for me to track your character as well as to verify proper character creation. I will need a copy of the spreadsheet periodically to keep "up to date" with changes. If this is a problem for anyone (technical ability, inability to access a spreadsheet application, etc.) please let me know and we can work something out.
* Please do create a pathfinder society character (if you can) to match your player character (basic information only, you don't need to get into huge detail). I'm just looking to be able to have you posting as your character names, it'll make the campaign easier to follow. If this is impossible for technical reasons please let me know.
* I will be sending the character histories I have written to you via e-mail, for all of you I am happy to discuss changes, additions and modifications to the history as written. PLEASE DO NOT POST YOUR HISTORIES OPENLY. I am ok if you wish to use the spoiler tag or if you wish to do things over e-mail, either is fine.
* I will be adding to your characters based upon the histories I have written for you. It is likely (don't do so yet) that one of the things I will be adding to all of your character's possessions is a mount. For some of you there may be other things.
* Some general rules I tend to use for my campaigns:
Food, Drink, Lodging, and Equipment
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As one of the PC's is a ranger (who *should* be taking some kind of survival skill (hint)) I am going to be very "loose" with things like food and water. The land area you all are playing in is a northern/temperate forested mountainous region. I suspect that game and water are plentiful, at least in most places. If, during the course of the campaign, it becomes important to be tracking your food/water resources you will be notified well ahead of time so you all can make plans. Until that time feel free to note a week's worth of Trail Rations on your character sheets (please buy this if you have the available starting coin) and some kind of container for carrying drink (waterskin, etc.) and we'll call this good for the majority of the campaign.
From the Lodging standpoint, things are a little different. Hardships befall PCs on the road and proper lodging can and may come as an issue when traveling through the wilderness. While, again, a woodsman can greatly assist you with finding shelter, such that much of the time this may not be an issue, there is still a difference between sleeping on the ground in the middle of winter and having some kind of shelter when none can be found in the surrounding lands. I leave it to your discretion as to what you feel you do and don't need to bring with you.
For the rest of the equipment, if it's not listed, you don't have it. Please do not "assume" you are carrying a torch with you when you wander into someplace that's dark. If and when you do acquire a mount keeping track of what is on the mount and what is on your person will be important.
Weight and Gold
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As you will all see when you get a chance to read the history of the lands you are in, I have implemented something slightly different when it comes to carrying cash with you.
First, weight is an issue and I do intend to keep weight as an issue in the campaign. Make sure you understand that what you carry with you does in fact have weight and that moving from say light to medium encumbrance does in fact come with penalties.
Money, as well, has weight to it along with value. Carrying 10 gold coins in your pocket does add weight to you, gold is a heavy substance. That said how are PC's expected to carry hundreds of coins on them and still be able to adventure?
In this campaign the larger land of Norwold has implemented a rather sophisticated (for D&D Campaigns) banking system. The end result of this banking system is the ability to translate coinage into "gold notes" that represent coinage. This can be done in any major city as well as many minor cities. Outlaying areas still trade in raw coins, most areas trade in either, and some major areas will trade only in gold notes. PCs should be ready to track the 4 major coin types (PP, GP, SP, and CP) as well as their stock of "gold notes". Gold notes carry the benefit of no encumbrance while their coinage equivalents do.
I believe the standard weight translation for coins is 1 pound of encumbrance per 10 coins, but I'm open to other interpretations as well.
For now, for each 10 coins you posses please add 1 encumbrance to your character. Feel free to, after purchasing items and equipment, split your coins to the best possible weight advantage for you. If you run into encumbrance issues between equipment and coinage, please let me know and we'll talk about whether or not your character might have had the ability to translate their starting coinage into gold notes.
I find this kind of system properly allows players the realities of adventuring. Finding a dragon's horde with fifty thousand gold coins in it may sound exciting but how, exactly, do you intend to get fifty thousand gold across the miles of land to a city? Yet, how do PCs intend to become rich when their 10 strength allows them only to carry cloths, a bow, and 2 gold coins?
About Spoilers (This isn't a spoiler in and of itself, please read it).
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I wanted to make a quick section for this because, while this is true for all campaigns you've played in, for this one it is especially problematic.
Much of this campaign, particularly the later parts of this campaign, are "information" based. Knowledge of the wrong information at the wrong time could, literally, ruin the enjoyment of the campaign for any and all of you, or even make it worthless to continue playing.
It may be tempting at times to click the spoiler button on a post just to get ahead of the game. I implore you guys NOT to do this. At best you'll likely ruin a surprise I have setup for later in the game, at worst you'll make the entire campaign obsolete.
I also would ask you all to play your characters. While it makes sense from a player perspective to share as much information as you possibly can as soon as you can (even to the point of shaking hands with someone you just met and telling them your entire life history just to ensure it's out there), it really doesn't make sense for a character to do so, at least until a bond of trust has been established between you and the party.
Lastly, please keep IC (In Character), OOC (Out of Character) and GM information provided to you separate from each other. If you do happen to get ahold of a piece of information you shouldn't have (or your player knows more than your character does, a likely scenario in this campaign), please keep in mind what information your character should have and act upon THAT information.
I promise that regardless of how complicated I make the story there will always be an opportunity for the players to "catch up" at event ending points to ensure you're all on the same page with a story. When a specific spoiler becomes irrelevant to a story I will announce it's availability to everyone to read. I promise I won't leave anyone in the dark wondering what's going on, so there's no reason for you to try to 'stay ahead' by reading what you shouldn't. :)
Thanks for bearing with me on this humongous post. I apologize but there may be alot of reading to do, particularly at the beginning of the campaign, to get the background information you need.
Lastly, I should note: Prior to the official start of the campaign there is a short back story I am running one of the PC's through. We will be posting to the PBP thread I will open up in entirely spoiler text. This text is not for public consumption among the rest of the players (you'll get to read it eventually). There may be a bit of a lag between now and the "first turn" of the real campaign so please keep with it.
For now, go ahead and download the spreadsheet, create your characters, read the histories I will send you and feel free to add/enhance what you get ahold of. Please use spoiler text for any history based information (things other players wouldn't know) and feel free to ask any questions you might have.
Let me know of any problems either by posting back here or at douglasw at wagnerweb dot org.
So we post a link to our sheets in our profiles here and in game correct?
Adding my dot for convenience in locating thread.
What material is allowed for feats? Not trying to break the game with obscure feats from some 10th party splash book, but am curious about some of the WoTC stuff, Complete XXX, for example.
As to traits, I'd like to get your opinions on them. Do you all want to play with them or without, either way I am OK with.
As to feats, please stick with those from the Pathfinder Rulebook unless you have a REALLY good reason why your character would have something outside of those rules.
Another question asked was whether or not I was planning on switching up to the official core rules after they came out in August. I won't rule it out but at the moment I have no real plans to do so.
All of you here should have received an e-mail talking about your particular character and histories. Please take a look and we'll go from there.
As to your character sheets, when you are done with them please e-mail them to me, I'll likely have a place to post them up. If you would prefer to link me to a place you have that too would be ok.
Yea, Ill agree that I love the traits. At worst they help you round out your skills if there's something you'd like to be a class skill for your character, at best they can add some very very fun flavor to your character.
I'm cool with them
Ok, lets go with the character traits then. I have the web download so shouldn't cause me much heartache. I'm ok with up to 2 character traits then, and we'll use them as "bonus" and not taking up feat slots. If you do wish to use more traits I believe there's a feat that allows you to "buy" more traits, and I think the standard rule is you can purchase a trait instead of a feat with feat points? I forget, it's been a while since I've looked.
For the moment, lets look at 1 or 2 traits on each of the PCs (at your discretion) but I'll be looking at them as part of the character review I intend to do to ensure the traits fit at least somewhat with either my or your idea of your player character.
There was another question about starting Hit Points. We'll go with the usual Level 1 maxed + Con bonus to get everyone starting out on the right foot. For each level, we'll have you guys roll HP but (based upon your current HP) I may have you on a case by case basis re-rolling 1's.
There was a question about OpenOffice. For any of you who do not have access to Micro$oft Excel, OpenOffice will open the spreadsheets just fine, albeit with a few macro issues. Generate as best you can and if you get stuck or if a dropdown isn't working feel free to skip it and/or send it to me and we'll get it fixed. 95% (at least) of what you'll need to do or edit should be perfectly viable through OOO.
And looking at character creation a moment. I realize I wrote the back story for most of your characters. Please don't think that precludes you from "making it your own". I am willing to discuss additions or modifications as you see a need and keep in mind that your characters have been "black holed" (most of you) for at least 5 years...that's a long time. If you wish to define what you've been doing in the interim from where my histories take a leap to present day and/or change things about your character that could have changed based upon your experiences of the years I don't have documented you may all feel free to discuss that as well.
Also keep in mind there is no rush on these characters...I still have at least a week before we're going to be kicking off the first turn of the campaign for real here, so feel free to let things percolate and ideas come to the surface if you wish to.
How basic would you like us to be in the online character description? I just put an appearance descriptor.
Oh... and I forgot about that 5 year gap... Have to think about that one. Normally, I am not this forgetful. I've just been very excited about a number of things recently, including finding Pathfinder, getting the campaign book in the mail, etcetera.
To be honest it doesn't much matter to me. If you wish to include your stats and other information the "create a character" form is listing, I have no problems with that, or if you want to simply include a description that too is ok. I think the description is important, try to include the visible elements of your character (height, weight, hair/eye color, clothing, visible weapons, etc.)
Mostly what I was trying to save you guys from doing is typing in your skills, feats, spells, etc. I think "stats" actually goes to description...a 6'5" guy wearing plate armor with an 18 strength looks like he could take out a house bare handed, while a 5'6" guy with a 10 strength looks like maybe he'd blow away in the wind. Dexterity speaks to grace and clarity of movement. Charisma speaks to beauty (at least PARTIALLY, we all know Cha holds more than just physical beauty, however a 3 charisma person isn't going to be getting many dates and an 18 char person is likely not going to be all that ugly), etc. etc. etc.
I'll leave it mostly up to you, but the description will save us some time on the introductions...when your character meets someone else we can all assume that the description in the box for the character is well known and we don't have to spend time describing what others see when you walk into a room.
Hey All,
Just test posting on my newly created Pathfinder Society character account. First time for me. First PBP as well... so be gentle. Looking forward to it!
As the human warrior I'll be involved in the pre-campaign stuff. I've submitted my spreadsheet for DM review, but have not received a background. I'll flush in a few details after I get that...
Ignore my testing below:
Questions about Protocol...
Okay, this is how I will likely be doing things:
Description of character actions.
"Character Speak"
A reference to a spoiler in character sheet or on other post (likely for magic items/spells/or other rule type things:
Example. Selena changes into her scholar's outfit)
Likewise, it would be nice if the DM could use titled spoilers to give specific information to specific characters.
A
You might also want to include numbers or some other system, so you can say which spoilers are viewable at which times... just ideas really.
Excellent concept, lets go ahead and get this down now so as I will be opening the PBP thread very shortly.
In this campaign I will actually be playing the role of both the DM and an NPC Character. I have the character created online and will post as that character when he is conversing with the party. Where the character and NPCs are dialoging with each other (a moment where the party should listen) I will be posting as Illydth-DM and denoting the conversation with "".
When posting to the PBP Thread anything not in special text should be in character. Please use "" to denote spoken text.
NPC123: "Selena, we need to go now."
I will use the ooc tag for requests from the players and other general information:
I'd also like the party to respond to roll requests in OOC as well:
More on rolls in a second.
I will use spoilers to communicate directly with players:
#1:
#2:
As we get to specific points in the campaign I will note in OOC again when spoilers are available:
Lastly, rolling.
I will be requesting rolls in this campaign. There is an onllne website that will do dice rolls for you and will provide you links to those rolls, but I don't have it off the top of my head. When you do rolls, please note what the roll is for, what the FINAL RESULT is (including bonuses) and then a link to the base dice roll. I will post up the website ASAP or if Dirk gets here before I do he can do so as well.
Anything else we need to cover before I open up the PBP and kick us off with a prelude between Dirk and the DM?
Do you want us to post our rolls publicly like that, or just certain rolls? Some rolls you may want to keep just between the player and the DM, so we could do it in a spoiler.
or
?
I'm seeing Perception, Search, Sense Motive and other personal sensory checks as being more private. While checks that show actions that are immediately resolved in such a way that everyone knows if they succeeded or failed can be rolled publicly. But that's just me. It will be more streamlined this way.
I believe the dice roller you're looking for is Invisible Castle. Also if you create an online alias I have found with the sCoreGen program you can go to the last tab (Can't remember the name right now) which is an extended stat block, then you can copy and paste that material in the notes portion of the Alias. I'll create my character tomorrow afternoon as an example. Or check out another of my characters (Erizi the Landless is my last to see how it looks.
I think I'm going to end up making a call on that on a case by case basis. For the moment, unless I say otherwise, please put rolls in OOC text. If I feel a roll needs to go into Spoiler I'll note it.
Generally in this case I'll do one of the following:
#3
One last item of note: I do reward good role playing as well as good puzzle solving skills. I DO NOT MIND Table talk to solve a problem. If you guys want to have a brainstorming session with the information available to all of you to figure out what's going on, just use ooc to do so and feel free to chat as much as you like. It does not necessarily have to be carried out in character if it's appropriate for it not to be. If you do this, however, ensure the following:
1) Use OOC for table talk.
2) Use ONLY that information available to your character and the entire party. If you don't know, ask in spoiler and I'll let you know.
3) Please don't break action or a story sequence to do this. Wait for an appropriate lull or downtime in the campaign storyline (at camp for the night or in a pub in town somewhere would be the perfect time for something like this).
Please do try to keep OOC conversations to a minimum unless being in character hinders the thought process. In this campaign it's going to be much more important for you to correctly think through problems than to dialog it through IC. Where In Character communication hinders your ability to think through an issue, feel free to discuss it "off line", but try not to go on forever with that discussion.
And I think you're right about the roll site, let me check it out and post a link if that's right.
Selena ponders the old man's words for a moment, struggling to recall if anything in what he said resonated with the memories of her dreams.
Yes, it is invisible castle.
If you don't mind go ahead and create an account and when rolling dice use your character name and "Rise of a Regent" in the "Campaign Name" box...it'll allow me to view your rolls.
For any percentile roles, my research tells me it doesn't matter if you want to use 2x1d10 (Test Roll (1d10=7, 1d10=3)) or use 1d100 (Test Roll (1d100=37)). Either is fine by me.
The official PBP thread has been created.
Rise of a Regent Campaign Thread
Over the next couple of days most of you will start to see spoiler posts created in the thread between Dirk and myself. As usual, please keep out of the spoilers. This is what I'll call the campaign's "Prolog" and should hopefully be pretty short.
Once the Prolog is done I will shoot you all an e-mail message and we'll start up with the actual campaign.
Black Tom: You've got about a week to two weeks max to get the Wizard character together (you're only starting about 2 days behind everyone else so hopefully this isn't an issue).
Most of the rest of you are moving right along with character creation, this is excellent. I believe Dirk and Selena are complete, with the bard and ranger in progress.
Looks promising folks. Thanks much for your fast responses and interest in getting the campaign off the ground.
Done should I email you the character sheet?
You don't necessairly have to sign up for membership. That said, if you are signed up it will track your rolls so you / I can see past rolls and such.
Without being signed up you can't denote campaign, not sure if you can denote character or not, and you can't denote notes at all either. My "preference" is for this to be done attached to an "account" so we can go back through rolls if needed, but I COMPLETELY understand the "I have too damn many online accounts" thoughts.
I'll leave this to your call.
I'll put in a vote that we all create accounts for trackable character rolls.
Another test:
This is my test roll (1d20=6)
Oh, and good tip Scran, I wondered what the "Stat Block" tab was used for. I've uploaded the details to my account.
DM: I'll need to convert gold to paper before we disembark. Let me know how you'd like that denoted on the character sheet.
Fine... I'll register.
Quick update:
I have character sheets for Dirk, Selena and Lasciel. I am missing information for the Hunter, Bard and Wizard at this point. Black Tom, you started after everyone else so I know you've got a bit farther to go. That said if you could at least ping me on e-mail so I know you're working on it I would appreciate it.
KJob and Scranford if there's anything you need from me please let me know.
You've all still got some time...I wouldn't expect to get fully underway till sometime late next week at the earliest.
I'll get it posted tomorrow. If you could resend me the history to my personal email account I would appreciate it. I am out of town this weekend and it's on my other computer. I forgot to save it.
Thanks
Steve
Black Tom speaking. Just started building my character, but I'm not sure about my starting age or if it will work playing a half-elf. Human is fine otherwise.
I'll try to get my act together ASAP.
So I've forgotten to check this thread for the last couple days, apologies folks. :)
Black, let me know how you're doing or if you have any questions. You've probably got to the end of the week or the beginning of next week to finish up would be my guess.
Scranford: Did you still need me to re-send the history? I think I'll do so just in case...sorry for the miss on this one.
And a quick campaign update:
For anyone watching the campaign thread, the prelude has started and is well underway. Again, a reminder not to click those very inviting spoiler "show" buttons but to be patient with me as I finish up this prelude...you all will get to read back text eventually so you won't miss anything. I suspect this prelude will be done within the week and sometime next weekend we'll get setup to start the real campaign.
Again, thanks to everyone for joining me on this adventure, if you have any questions don't hesitate to post back here or send me an e-mail and I'll try to get to you quicker than recently. :)
Black: The starting age I have for your character is 30, while a little young by half-elven standards it's not so young by human standards and given the kingdom is MOSTLY human (though all races are represented) it's not entirely out of the question that the culture of the region would treat a half-elf as more "half human" and push you along the same timeline for adulthood as a human child. I could even see some opportunities for role-play in this to "cover for" any low stats, like charisma (you're not as graced as an adult would be in social situations) or strength or constitution (still not matured).
I think it works either way (human or half-elf) so don't feel you need to switch on account of the history...it works either way.
Making a couple of small changes to the campaign rules:
* .5 Weight / 10 Coins (Still 0 weight for any coinage translated to 'gold notes'). I will update any character sheets I have so don't feel the need to go back and do that. This ought to allow you all to carry just a little more coin or not to feel too overburdened during the campaign.
* We will add a Light Riding Horse, Riding Saddle and Saddle Bags to the character sheet for free. All of you have been traveling a VERY long distance (many hundreds of miles) in the years since you've left Kethlenica and I would suspect at SOME point you'd have had to have picked up a horse. Anyone may, at their discretion, purchase a better horse or barding or whatever else they'd like but this needs to come out of whatever starting gold you have.
* Each of you will need to identify which items you typically store "on your horse" and which items stay with you at all times. Any items "on the horse" can be had for 0 weight (and thus less encumbrance) but if you are ever in a situation without your horse, you will be without the items stored on the horse. Any items on your person need to be weight tracked. Generally I use the right side equipment column for "horse carried" and the left side column for player carried.
* I will make a few changes to each of the character sheets myself and send them back, you can either approve or modify as you wish and send me the final char sheets back. Please be checking your e-mail sometime this week to verify/approve/modify the final char sheet.
Just some notes on coin weight... you don't have to use this information if you don't want to.
Dungeons and Dragons official (at least in 3.5, don't know about PF): 50 coins = 1 pound. (ridiculous, no one would use coins that weigh 1/50th of a pound)
Most precious metal coins in the real world are 1 troy ounce of metal (.997 ounces) And it seems likely that a coin in a fantasy world would be the same weight. So you could rule that 16 coins = 1 pound. (that would put it about halfway between 10 coins = .5 pounds and 10 coins = 1 pound.)
But whatever works for you is good. :P
***casts silence on herself to prevent from gushing on about the virtues of a coin-based currency over a paper one
I was actually hoping someone would lay out the official D&D rule for coin weight.
That said, 1/50th of a pound for a coin? That seems like an awfully thin piece of gold to me.
I think we'll stick with 20 / pound. Seems to be close to what we're all used to right now and should (hopefully) divide out fairly well.
Ooooh! For some reason this interested me. According to yahoo answers, the $10 gold coins (which stopped being minted in the 20's or 30's) weighed in at .48375 oz. and was made of 90% gold. So by those measurements it is over 32 coins per lb!
I also happened to notice that it takes 80 quarters to make a pound. So 50 doesn't sound too terribly far out of the realm of possibilities.
I'm happy with 20, just thought I'd share.
The half ounce coins are usually referred to as half dollars (from the day when the word dollar meant a coin of a specific weight of metal). I have a few silver half dollars.
So I suppose it depends on the minting of the realm. If the coins are half-ounce size: a copper piece would probably buy about the same as 50 cents. A silver piece would buy about $10 worth, and a gold piece (in a non-inflated economy) would buy $200.00. It doesn't exactly match up to the RPG, but the RPG system is a lot less complicated.
Anyway... lol... just some fun coin stuff to throw around. :P
Interesting, and this is a good example of where players can start influencing the game rules. It sounds, potentially, like the D&D Designers did their homework with 50 coins to a pound.
Anyone have any objections to it? It allows you guys to carry more, that's for sure, and if it fits both rules and logic I see no reason not to play it that way.
So, 50? Going once? Going Twice?...
Interesting, and this is a good example of where players can start influencing the game rules. It sounds, potentially, like the D&D Designers did their homework with 50 coins to a pound.
Anyone have any objections to it? It allows you guys to carry more, that's for sure, and if it fits both rules and logic I see no reason not to play it that way.
So, 50? Going once? Going Twice?...
It will make it easier to carry treasure, but I think 25 coins to a pound sounds right, unless you want the coins to be quarter sized... lol :) I like the idea of a gold coin being worth something though.
Since we've got the official rules and they do make some kind of sense, lets go ahead and stick with them. 50 coins / pound, and track weight to the half pound.
One other comment, if I'm coming across as a real rules lawyer here, I'm certainly NOT trying to. I am MUCH more interested in a good story than any given rule in a rule book. Where something makes sense or I think it could enhance the story (encumbrance, food, weather, etc.) I will add it and work with it. Where I start finding that things are detracting from the story line, however, I will not hesitate to remove them.
Keep in mind it's been YEARS since I've run a D&D campaign and when I did I was "much younger" and a bit less mature so alot of things that give the game "depth" I have really never dealt with, preferring the "hack and slash" of D&D at that age.
I mention this because I want to encourage you all NOT to take me as looking for ways to cause you misery during the campaign. I know I've made a bit of a "deal" with weather and food and such above, but I really DO NOT expect it to become a problem for your characters...and if it does it will work into the story as opposed to being an arbitrary "you're too cold, no spells for you *cackle*" kind of thing.
Now on to Business
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T - 1 Week to Campaign Start.
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Hopefully if I can get my butt in gear and get a few more turns out the door by the end of the weekend I should be ready to start you guys on the actual campaign with introductions and such.
At this point I have:
Dirk (Warrior) - Complete
Fyird (Bard) - Complete
Lasciel (Rogue) - Complete
Selena (Sorceress) - Complete
I am still waiting on character sheets for:
Ranger - (KJob)
Wizard - (Black Tom)
If the two of you could shoot me an e-mail in the next day or two and let me know you're still watching this thread and give me some kind of timeframe on character completion I would appreciate it.
Thanks to everyone for the e-mails and work you all have put in so far for this and hopefully the campaign will be as fun as I hope. :)
Well, alright.
Since the jump rules are a little far-stretched also, I suppose I could believe that gravity is less effective on these fantasy worlds and still imagine my coins to be big, round, and shiny.
So I wanted to provide some idea as to what I've done with combat and get some feedback. I'm going to take a snippet from a combat sequence Dirk and I just went through and see how it all works out. I'd appreciate you guys reading through this and commenting. Specifically I'd like to know if you like the way this is being done or if you want me to run combat sequences a bit more "traditionally".
Note that in the sequence below Player 1 had already rolled (by request) an initiative of 12 and 5 attack rolls, the first 3 misses the second 2 hits. Note also, the text is rough in that it's translated from a second person voice (you, your) to a 3rd person voice on the fly.
I didn't try to pretty this up, look at how the text looks and flows and tell me whether or not you all like it or don't.
----------------------
Before you or Player1 can even take a step toward the two they turn and spot you, draw short swords and leap to the attack.
One npc2 goes into a diving roll trying to get behind player2 for a fast attack. For a moment you are sure Player2's counter to the tumble came just a bit to late, but the tumble started just a little too far back and didn't happen quite quick enough...as the forward roll completes the head of player2's mace is right there to connect directly with the underside of the attacker's jaw, stopping his acrobatics maneuver cold and slamming the npc2 in the face, the crackle of breaking bone clearly audible as the npc2 stumbles back a few feet and tries to recover from the blow. Expecting the acrobatics maneuver to be more effective than it was player1's opportunistic attack at the npc2 came way to soon and flew wide.
The npc2 feebly swipes his sword across to keep Player2 back but the blow comes no where near to connecting, the npc2 having stumbled back too far and the blade swinging past the player2's Chest with several inches to spare.
The npc1 comes directly at Player1, shortsword leading for a piercing attack at Player1's chest. Coming on too fast for Player1 but managing to deflect at least some of the blow Player1 parries his shortsword across from player1's chest to player1's side, but the sword draws a small line of blood across player1's ribs as it slides between player1's arm and player1's side, edge cutting through a corner of player1's heavy leather shirt.
Countering with a straight across cut of Player1's heavy blade, the npc1 simply ducks his head, already being partially low and simply ducks under the blade of player1's sword, the overpowered blow leaving player1 wide open for a counter strike by npc1.
To Player1's right, Player2 strides forward, swiping at the seriously injured npc2 with his mace, but npc2 continues to retreat dodging back from the mace and the swing.
Player1's last strike having been so far off base has put player1 in a very bad position and npc1 takes full advantage of it, reversing his cut, drawing another line both across player1's rib and then all the way across your chest, his sharpened sword making quick work of player1's leather shirt and digging a deep line across player1's body. . Knowing Player1 is in a horrible position Player1 cuts his blade directly down in front of player1 forcing npc2 to step back and come back in at player1. While the attack had no chance of hitting, it did the trick to put player1 and npc2 back on even footing.
Meanwhile, NPC2 makes another feeble swipe at Player2, but likely due to the severe damage to his face his blow comes no where close, but it does leave NPC2 open to a devastating overhand chop by Player2 that practically flattens NPC2's head and almost disintegrates the bones that were already broken. NPC2 crumples to the ground, quite dead.
NPC1 tries the same attack that succeeded the first time, coming straight in with his short sword for another strike at player1's chest, but this time player1 better understand NPC1's speed and power. Player1 sidesteps the thrust and brings his blade around to cut a deep line from NPC1's shoulder to his other side (7 Points of Damage) practically severing NPC1's arm from his body. Player1 realizes he's left himself open for another strike but realizes also that NPC1 is finished.
The predicted counter comes and Player1 dodges aside as best he can, NPC1 thrusting his sword behind him knicking your outer thigh (1 Point of Damage) as Player1 comes back across with the blade, taking NPC1's head clean from his shoulders (15 Points of Damage).
Combat Award: XXX XP
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In the example above, I asked Dirk to give me an initiative roll and then 5 attack rolls. I then performed the same rolls on the opponents and created the story from there. As you walk through the text above you should be able to see the round by round hit/miss rolls displayed in story form.
The upside to this way of doing things is that I can move a combat sequence along very quickly, one post, in this case, was 5 rounds of combat and (though not intentionally so) actually allowed a single combat sequence to finish without requesting more rolls. It also allows me to "storyize" the campaign a bit more, editorializing the story a bit to mask the OOC rolls.
The Downside to this, of course, is that Dirk had practically no interaction with his character during this combat. He got to make 5 rolls + an initiative roll and sit back and see what happened. He wasn't able to react or take part in the definition of the tactics or swings taken by him or his compatriot, but instead was forced to allow the DM to make up the story.
A couple points above I'd like to point out.
In the initial volley it was exceptionally helpful to have Dirk having given me 5 rolls. One of the opponents attempted an acrobatics move that moved him through the PC's threatened squares and failed the rolls...which opened an attack of opportunity to BOTH players. Had Dirk not given me 5 attack rolls, I would have had to have used his attack roll for the attack of opportunity, and had to re-post asking him for another attack roll for his first round...I wouldn't have even made it through a single round of combat before having to wait on Dirk to re-post.
However this expediency to the accomplishment of the combat has the downside of lessening Dirk's interaction during the combat (and thus his interaction with the campaign in it's entirety).
So I guess I'm looking for ideas on the best way to obtain the expediency of multiple rolls with the player need to be in control of his or her own character.
Open to suggestions, feel free to throw your 2 cents in here, I'm really interested to hear the responses.
(Note also the use of OOC in various places to denote rolls from text. Is this too distracting to the story? Not visible enough? Does there need to be a "roll everything up front and get the math out of the way in one section the story in another" or is this integration of Numbers and Math combined with the story a good way to do it?)
Hmm, well for me, I like the rolling multiple rolls in advance and watching the story unfold, but I'm not a combat class. A fighter, ranger, or a rogue may want to keep their tactical options open. :)
I guess as long as you allow for contingency plans, such as "If npc2 does this, I'll take a 5-foot step to the side" or something like that, I'm good.
Now that I think about it, a wizard may want more tactical options open as well. Me, I can be a spell machine gun, and just cast the same thing over and over again until I'm out of ammo, but a wizard will have more limited options.
I agree, for some of the more tactical classes, this could be an issue. For me, as a ranger, though, I mean I can tell you what I'll be doing and you could probably guess pretty well what my tactics would be--Rapid shotting every round I can make a full action, prefering to keep enemies within 30ft, attacking favored enemy first, etc...but for someone in melee range (who might want to attempt an acrobatics check to move here or there for flanking or to not be flanked him/herself), or espescially a caster who has to pick and chose every round which resources to spend, this could be an issue.
Granted, this is your campaign to run as you wish and I think you had mentioned it would be more story driven than a combat-y dungeon crawl, anyway. I guess for your random encounters (3 thugs come out of nowhere!) this could be fine, but during bigger battles, espescially a BBEG fight, probably want to slow it down a little?
I understand, though, as this process will help our campaign move at a rate faster than a glacial crawl, and that is always a good thing!
So I got some feedback over lunch from the player playing Dirk today and I got pretty much what I an hearing from you all here:
While the story combat sequence above works to move things along it does "extract" the players from the game. In one way, this can be a good thing to keep a campaign moving along, but on the other hand, this is D&D (Ok, Pathfinder) and there's no way around the fun of rolling a die and cutting someone's head off. :)
What I'm going to do next is something a bit 180ish from what we've seen above, I"m going to go with a round by round and see how that goes.
Tactics and allowing you guys to write your own parts of the story will likely keep you all alot more interested than merely seeing your character names written into a larger plot.
This is going to work out much better if this is "our" story instead of just "my" story.
More information as I get through the second combat sequence of the Prelude. Thanks for the feedback.
Campaign Update
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I've heard back from KJob and he's in the process of character creation so we're on track there. I also heard back from Black Tom and unfortunately his life situation right how has caused him to have to turn down the campaign, leaving the Wizard slot open.
No fear, however, as I already have the slot filled and will be diligently working with our new player to get the Wizard slot filled out as soon as I can.
Should be all good to go for my hoped for campaign start date of this coming Monday.
Hang in there ladies and gents, we'll be rolling along pretty quickly.
A good compromise could be to roll two or three attacks at a time, to represent the main attack/action of the character and then any attacks of opportunity, etc. It would still be a round by round accounting, but unused rolls would just be discarded.
That way you won't bring the flow to a halt if there is an attack of opportunity, but at the same time you allow the players to control the action.
Example: 1d20+2=20, 1d4-1=3, 1d20+2=7, 1d4-1=2, 1d20+2=16, 1d4-1=1
So, in this case, my main attack would likely succeed, but my next attack of opportunity doesn't look like a very high roll. If for some reason I get more than one attack of opportunity in a round, the third roll would represent the next one.
I suppose you could let a character roll all the possible attacks he or she could make in a round, including all attacks of opportunity, at once, and then just resolve the ones you need to.
I'm fine with making several rolls and letting you dictate the action. On a PbP without a real battlemat combat can be very tricky anyway. Perhaps we could come up with a "Standard" approach to combat for each character, and unless the PC chimes in with a change of tactics you could roll with the combat...ie...When forced into melee Fyird continues to sing, and uses his short spear, and shield for attacks.
That's true.... Certain characters don't really need to make round by round tactical decisions, so you could just involve the characters that do in that type of thing.
As a rogue, especially with some of the feats available in Pathfinder i find tactics to be key to how I play, and often define my character's attitude through actions and descriptions.