K, that's more or less what I thought, though I missed the no normal damage as an unarmed strike before. Now if I can just figure out positioning I'll be in business.
Nah, the first two orcs that attacked hit Tyrant with full attacks, then a stray one between our turns missed with its two attacks, for a total of 8 full attacks with no movement.
We're doing a partial theater of the mind approach here where I'm showing you what the space looks like and dealing with generalities of distance, so I'm just working with 'near' 'medium' and 'far' distances, and assuming enemies are in reach if the context is the pcs rush up to engage them. I'm open to some further suggestions if you can link something about guidelines for theater of the mind combat.
Your question it seems to me is getting at some considerations where we'd have to have a grid with icons plotted out. If someone would like to take over duties for that, I'm open to it. I don't have time to run this game and deal with that kind of stuff, so I can't offer to do that, and that's why I said at the outset I wasn't going to be doing a full-fledged battlemap.
Nah, the first two orcs that attacked hit Tyrant with full attacks, then a stray one between our turns missed with its two attacks, for a total of 8 full attacks with no movement.
We're doing a partial theater of the mind approach here where I'm showing you what the space looks like and dealing with generalities of distance, so I'm just working with 'near' 'medium' and 'far' distances, and assuming enemies are in reach if the context is the pcs rush up to engage them. I'm open to some further suggestions if you can link something about guidelines for theater of the mind combat.
Your question it seems to me is getting at some considerations where we'd have to have a grid with icons plotted out. If someone would like to take over duties for that, I'm open to it. I don't have time to run this game and deal with that kind of stuff, so I can't offer to do that, and that's why I said at the outset I wasn't going to be doing a full-fledged battlemap. There are too many issues with trying to download the image, getting it to upload at the original resolution so I can actually see what's on the map, finding all the icons, getting them manuevered into position, players not being able to see the images and or maps in certain browsers etc. etc., it's just more than I can do right now.
I can crack open a Roll20 game and invite everyone in a little bit.
Nah, the first two orcs that attacked hit Tyrant with full attacks, then a stray one between our turns missed with its two attacks, for a total of 8 full attacks with no movement.
We're doing a partial theater of the mind approach here where I'm showing you what the space looks like and dealing with generalities of distance, so I'm just working with 'near' 'medium' and 'far' distances, and assuming enemies are in reach if the context is the pcs rush up to engage them. I'm open to some further suggestions if you can link something about guidelines for theater of the mind combat.
I understand not having the time to do a full battlemap, definitely. I suppose I just wasn'te prepared for what was left in the quotations. As a player, I'm very rules oriented. When I plan things out, it's in 5 foot increments and I've been playing that way for so long that it's ingrained and natural for me at this point. When I had Tyrant move forward, I mentioned him staying 10 feet away because my thought process was "Okay, they have her surrounded. If I get close, three could five foot step, I'd be able to transform if any hit me. If they have reach weapons (since we don't know what they're armed with) then they'd have to at least draw them and the two behind them can five foot step and full attack, but then the rest would have to move. Tyrant can probably survive all that."
I'm not trying to be a complainer or a spoil sport. It's just not what I was expecting, even in theater of the mind. It's not what I would have had Tyrant do if I had known. Despite that, what's done is already done, and I now know what I know. We'll see if Guiscard will be able to Raise him this turn if he'd still like to try, and we'll go from there. Until then, Tyrant protected the party. That's what mattered.
I set up the Final Fantasy d20 character sheet, once everyone is in I can assign their sheet. I gave Tyrant an image more fitting to his actual appearance, but you can change it if you want once you're in the game.
Nah, the first two orcs that attacked hit Tyrant with full attacks, then a stray one between our turns missed with its two attacks, for a total of 8 full attacks with no movement.
We're doing a partial theater of the mind approach here where I'm showing you what the space looks like and dealing with generalities of distance, so I'm just working with 'near' 'medium' and 'far' distances, and assuming enemies are in reach if the context is the pcs rush up to engage them. I'm open to some further suggestions if you can link something about guidelines for theater of the mind combat.
I understand not having the time to do a full battlemap, definitely. I suppose I just wasn'te prepared for what was left in the quotations. As a player, I'm very rules oriented. When I plan things out, it's in 5 foot increments and I've been playing that way for so long that it's ingrained and natural for me at this point. When I had Tyrant move forward, I mentioned him staying 10 feet away because my thought process was "Okay, they have her surrounded. If I get close, three could five foot step, I'd be able to transform if any hit me. If they have reach weapons (since we don't know what they're armed with) then they'd have to at least draw them and the two behind them can five foot step and full attack, but then the rest would have to move. Tyrant can probably survive all that."
I'm not trying to be a complainer or a spoil sport. It's just not what I was expecting, even in theater of the mind. It's not what I would have had Tyrant do if I had known. Despite that, what's done is already done, and I now know what I know. We'll see if Guiscard will be able to Raise him this turn...
I honestly didn't see the note about the 10ft increment, and was assuming everyone had joined in melee together
I set up the Final Fantasy d20 character sheet, once everyone is in I can assign their sheet. I gave Tyrant an image more fitting to his actual appearance, but you can change it if you want once you're in the game.
I signed on w/ my account. I don't really know how to use any of the map functions in this despite playing around with it before, but I can give you the map files if you can upload them.
I see you chose another image file -- I'd rather use the ones I already posted. The players should all be on the landing at second floor
Metivier Manor (grid)
Metivier Manor (no grid)
The grid is 1 square = 10ft.
Oh yeah, I forgot there were maps already. I'll add those when I can. 10 foot squares are annoying so I'll just halve the square size so we can measure normally with the ruler.
I can add you as co-GM later as well.
Oh, also, everyone please change your display name to your username on here, or character name, or pop a line in chat so I know who's who; I need to assign the character sheets to specific people.
Oh, also, everyone please change your display name to your username on here, or character name, or pop a line in chat so I know who's who; I need to assign the character sheets to specific people.
Thanks for setting this up -- the players are still all on the wrong floor (you have them on the ground floor, they should be on the landing of the second one), and the grid doesn't look right, it looks too big compared with what the original was, is there any way that can be adjusted?
okay i figured out how to change the grid to the correct size fir 1 sq = ft. -- everything needs to be moved and resized; I really don't understand a lot of the other controls and I don't have tokens for most of the players, so I'm going to need everyone else to pitch in to finish setting up. I've managed to move Guiscard to where he needs to be and at the correct size. I made an account ages ago, and I really don't understand the controls for this system, but somehow everyone needs to cut and paste a token in at the correct size on the second landing, as well as the orcs. As I said, I really don't know how to do that.
I'm ready to move on to the next round whenever everyone can finish editing whatever needs to be done with the map.
...Is this hallway we're in really supposed to be 500+ ft. long?
It's about 200ft. long; I changed the grid size so it was 5' a square.
Trying to use this already underscores why I didn't want to tangle with this -- the token images are almost impossible to see at this magnification, and you can't actually zoom in to just the battle area. I suppose we could try to chop up the image to have just the hall, but I'm not sure that would lose so much resolution it would just be a blob. I do like that the grid stays put -- I've tried to do this on googledocs, and the players would always drag the overlay grid around when placing their tokens, and I'd have to go in and hand fix it every time someone tried to move something.
Yeah, it's why I had changed the squares to be a bit smaller, nixing the 10 ft. squares. Hallways is meant to be 200 ft., it's a quick fix.
Also you can just zoom in, it's the bar on the side.
Edit: Fixed. Changed the square measurement back to 5 ft. There's no reason for it to be set to 10 ft. squares in this case since we know how big the area is; 200 ft. is 200 ft. (or in this case a little above 150), it just makes measurements harder. And makes fitting characters into squares harder as well.
Ok -- the grid is now wrong again and everyone is X2 as big as they're supposed to be. Please change it back to how I had it. I had the grid set up for the correct size for 1 sq = 5ft. If you look at the grid for the original map, that is 1 sq=10ft. The staircase is 20ft wide. Right now, the staircase is only 10ft wide.
I thought your problem was everyone was too small?
And you also just wanted a better frame of reference for more theater of the mind combat?
It doesn't need to be exact, just functional.
Either way, it's back to being ultra small in case you did actually want accuracy over visibility without zooming.
It is hard to see with the available limits of the zoom function (it goes to 250%, but really needs to go to like 500% to really narrow the visible area to the battle scene, but I don't want to decrease the size of the manor by half if we're going to plot stuff out.
Looking things over, one of the orcs should have drawn an AoO from Mithuth, and probably a few of the other PCs, before they were able to attack Tyrant.
Looking things over, one of the orcs should have drawn an AoO from Mithuth, and probably a few of the other PCs, before they were able to attack Tyrant.
Well, as I said, I wasn't really using a battlemap -- if we're going to retrospectively apply one, that will probably change some things. Let's keep moving on to Round 2, if we go back and try to re-adjudicate stuff, then we really need to completely start over, as I will change the positioning of the enemies as well to avoid the AoO, so it will go in a circle of retrospective adjustments.
I think we really need to just have everyone paste in their icons and try to move forward -- the game is already stalling over the tech prep, and we're still missing most of the players on the map. If we go backwards to try to start over, that's going to slow things down yet again. I'm okay if everyone wants to completely start the combat over again once we've positioned things -- but it's that or we move on to Round 2 -- there's no other reasonable option for the reasons I've enumerated above -- I'm going to adjust stuff as well if we start calling into question rules issues which don't arise in Theater of the Mind, so it's not just an issue of applying character actions retrospectively, I'm going to change all the villain actions, which will then make those retrospective adjustments have to be adjusted as well.
It would be nice if we could be ready to move on to Round 2 or restart everything by Tuesday -- honestly, my sense right now is this game is about to die over the lag around the battlemap set up.
We can continue, I was just expressing my confusion since I had not realized we were playing that way. I don't want to turn the game into a slog, especially over this.
It's a rough situation because it's funky map weirdness that resulted in a player death, but I think it's fixable? I have a 1 in 3 chance to Raise Tyrant, and I can keep trying over multiple rounds until I run out of MP or hit the time cap on Raise (6 rounds), so there's basically no chance he stays dead, it's just a matter of shoving resources in. If nobody had the ability to raise dead, I'd say restart the combat TBH, but as-is, eh.
It's faster to just keep moving, and I think we can keep it moving just by having you take your actions now, since it's bad guy turns now and having people get added in as they can.
I honestly didn't see the note about the 10ft space. If you had pointed that out to me before I had the orcs act, I could have adjusted.
I'm willing to use a battlemap if everyone wants to, but I don't really know how to use Rolld20 and I'm not even sure it's capable of holding all the maps I might want to use (I'm not really sure about the image size limitations). I've tried using googledocs in the past, but if you insert images, it tends to ruin the resolution so everything turns into a blob on a lot of images, and I don't really know how to fix that.
I've tried a few other programs without much success.
Image size limitations shouldn't be an issue. I have Roll20 premium, so I have pretty much uncapped file storage, and map sizes can always be increased to near ludicrous sizes if needed.
I honestly didn't see the note about the 10ft space. If you had pointed that out to me before I had the orcs act, I could have adjusted.
I'm willing to use a battlemap if everyone wants to, but I don't really know how to use Rolld20 and I'm not even sure it's capable of holding all the maps I might want to use (I'm not really sure about the image size limitations). I've tried using googledocs in the past, but if you insert images, it tends to ruin the resolution so everything turns into a blob on a lot of images, and I don't really know how to fix that.
I've tried a few other programs without much success.
It's alright. Like I said, I don't want to bog things down any more than it has been. "Close, medium, far" range as been established and, now that it has, we're on the same page.
Um...hello, everyone? Where y'all at?
I know where I am, trying to give an orc a bad touch.
2 orcs then me I believe.
For the rebuild, I'm leaning towards either Cacophonist to keep it simple or being a Shaman/Blood Lily Acolyte White Mage so we can get some heals out.
You go at the same time as the orcs giri
Looks like we still don't have tokens for some of the players so I can't tell if they're in range for an attack or not -- presumably Vinexa is because she performed a touch attack?
Not even sure how to add an icon, I thought the games GM had to do that.
Yes, I should be in range of one of them, namely the lower right one diagonal down and to the right of him so he is between me and most of the rest of them.
I don't know how to use rolld20; we can't use it if you're relying on me to post everything, as I already explained.
If the icons don't get posted by Monday I'm canceling this experiment with rolld20.
Theater of the Mind. Here are the guidelines I'm going to refer to on the assumption everyone else isn't going to learn how to use rolld20 and get icons posted -- I'm not using it unless that can happen, as I don't myself understand how it works.
Okay, so the attempt to make up a battlemap on rolld20 clearly isn't working; I'm okay with using a battlemap if everyone can be responsible for posting their own icons, but it's not okay to start posting actions without having done so.
I'm okay with a different battlemap set up if someone else wants to get it set up and everyone will be responsible for posting their icons.
I've looked at some other options again and there just isn't a platform that I have access to that won't ruin the image resolution for my files and that I know how to use. There's no workaround in googledocs for this that I can figure out.
If no one can offer another solution, the option is to continue with theater of the mind under the rules I posted -- it will be a different sort of game with less emphasis on the technicalities of position strategy. Please read the pdf I posted and decide if you can he happy with that.
There isn't a platform that I have access to that will make my map files usable, and I don't know how to use rolld20, and no one else seems to be willing to learn either, so it seems like the options are to just call off the game if some kind of map with tokens is going to be a necessity, because I can't provide that; I said before we started I didn't intend to use one, but I'm willing to accommodate player preferences if they will be responsible for it. I'm not now offering to deal with a tech and prep issue that I didn't offer to do at the outset -- so those are the options.
I've enjoyed the world building so far and would like to continue with the caveat I'm not going to be solely responsible for a gridded battlemap -- the storyline of the current adventure is pretty interesting.
Is there a particular need for a map showing areas beyond our rough immediate location when only in combat?
The maps you come up with are really amazing, and awesome, but for combat we don't need more than the current room/area we're in, and *maybe* a few surrounding rooms.
Would a smaller map be possible/helpful?
As I mentioned, I'm okay with theater of the mind now that I'm aware of the rules by which we're playing. I already have a token setup, but it sounds like that route is going to be too much.
That's my two cents.
Is there a particular need for a map showing areas beyond our rough immediate location when only in combat?
The maps you come up with are really amazing, and awesome, but for combat we don't need more than the current room/area we're in, and *maybe* a few surrounding rooms.
Would a smaller map be possible/helpful?
I'm open to that too, I just don't want to hand draw that or figure out some way to get it to load correctly, and I don't want to be responsible for player tokens -- if someone wants to figure that out, I'm open to that.
The maps don't load correctly in googledocs, that means I have to redraw the area with the shapes and line function, and then get a grid that's going to get dragged around whenever anyone posts -- I'm not interested in spending that much time on it, but I'll be happy to use it if someone else wants to get it set up because they're intent on doing highly tactical combat.
Everybody could put in their images themselves if I could assign them their sheets, but at least one person never clicked the join link and one other person never clued me in as to who they are because they're using their real name instead of username, so I can't assign those two the right sheet. Tyrant, Giri, Vinexa, and myself are properly assigned, but I get the feeling Sieg and Mithuth aren't interested.
If anyone has questions on how stuff works...please ask. It's the easiest way to get answers.
As an example, how to add your token: fairly simple once your sheet is assigned. Click on your sheet. Hit edit. Upload your image where it says "Avatar/Click to Upload". Save. Drag and drop onto map.
Oh sorry, I'm Dave B, lol. I forgot it shows my real name.
There, I am now on the map.
This coming Wednesday through Sunday my posting will be extremely slow to non-existent as I will be at Gencon in Indy and then two weeks after that for the same days it will be slow again for Origins in Ohio. I may be able to sneak some posts in but I wouldn't count on it.
So, I don't want to keep anyone in suspense -- I'm honestly ending up crushed by the amount of work for nursing school and I'm going to have to regretfully take a break from the boards for now. If you want to keep your profiles active I may be able to pick up this game again in a few months, but after a solid week of having no time to look at my games, I need to just go ahead and call it how I see it. I wish everyone good gaming and hope to see you around later.
I'm a huge supporter of "Games don't die, they just go on indefinite hiatus." I'll be around should you wish to continue :)