OOC Discussion

A thread for posting out of character chatter. Basically we'd like to keep the main game thread clean of rules questions and the like so this will be the thread for such things.

(Sample post updated. It's like when I put on the PC hat my brain turns to mush)

Agree whole heartedly. Going to take a little while to get in the swing of the new system too.

Ok so no space on dice rolls when adding modifiers

I understand the desire to keep the game thread clean...how do I use this feature as shown in the sample encounter?

nm - got it. noob maneuver.

Didn't realize that, good to know.

Just checking in from work so I'll have a reponse to the encounter actions tonight. Three unidentified creatures and two of you just stroll on up. Ballsy! At least the ranger will be able to loot your corpses. :-)

Hahaha yup. I will just silently melt into the forest.

@gamerdad having a spell at the ready is like drawing a dagger. No roll until you use it.

Got the private message in the game thread.

Hey that's neat can we as characters use them?

Yep, you should be able to send them to me or each other without anyone else seeing them (although as DM I might be able to see them all, not really sure). The little icon to the left of the OOC is the 'notes' icon. Give it whirl.

Another topic, when making an attack roll, just go ahead and add a damage roll as well, just in case you hit.

Ok will do in the future.

That is so cool. I added damage roll to last post as well.

Well I will send a note to gamerdad and see if you (szemely) can see it.

I can see the note to GamerDad.

Well there is your answer. You as GM can see player to player notes.

So the lesson being, don't talk bad about the DM using notes. :-)

I can see it. How does one send a private note? Not that I'd do a deal behind your back...

Sorry it took me a bit to get back to you, had a helluva cold this week.

No worries health and rl take top priorities. Hope you are well now

Hey you guys szemely asked for initiative rolls on your last posts too. Just a little heads up

I added mine to my post on preparing to charge. I got a 4 including modifier.

And you still have an option to charge before we the initiative rolls come into play.

Current Status:

Ok, we have four of the five characters submitted, two of which still need some work. If you need any help with something in particular please let me know and we'll get ya sorted. I'm going to set a start date for the main story this coming Monday (April 4th) and we'll work through anything that's not completed as we go, so it's not that big of a deal if we're not 100% done at that time.

I haven't heard from Epic_Cheese in over a week, but we'll give him some time and he can join in progress if he shows up.

Gotcha. I'm one of those that needs to get his sheet together. I will get on it and have it ready in time!

@szemely thanks for the 1,000,000 style points! I remembered that battlecry from the Dies the Fire novel. I didn't expect anyone to know it!

Mechanics question: when I'm five feet from an enemy I have a disadvantage with my lance. Does that mean I roll twice and take the lower of the two? To avoid that can I drop my lance and use the war hammer to attack all in the same action?

The amount you can accomplish in one action is something I don't have a solid grasp of.

The "Hakkaa Paalle" battle cry is used quite a bit in a different hobby that I'm involved with - recognized it right off. :-)

Anyway, yes, anytime you roll at a Disadvantage you'll make two d20 rolls and take the lower result.

As part of an Attack Action you're allowed to ready your weapon. Dropping a lance and unhooking your hammer from your belt would still allow you enough time to attack.

That battle cry has been used in a few books that I've read as well.

First post is up in the thread: Return to Olaj

Generally the way I like to run things is to post a situation, let everyone tell me what they're going to do, and then I'll recap the action that everyone has taken (and resolve what needs to be resolved). I'll usually end a post with a "The Situation" OOC just so that everyone knows what's going on.

Even if your action is to essentially do nothing go ahead and post something. If the situation is one where I need an action form everyone I will generally wait 48 hours or so for you to get something posted (not counting weekends - those generally tend to be pretty slow around here). If you haven't posted in that time I will move things along and either assume your character is following along with the others or take an action for you (which may or may not be to your character's benefit, depending on my mood. :-)).

@Volimance I know that I just went to the main thread. The sample encounter was just to give us an example of how things would work. I'm eager to get this story off the ground.

So I've always been told never split the party but that is what we are doing right off the bat. *chuckles* That mandate has always felt unrealistic to me.

Just what I want you to think!

*evil laugh*

Haha! Well that doesn't sound ominous at all.

I think everyone just looked at Morris and said... um, nope not that a'ways.
I mean c'mon he's no that ugly (yes he is).

Actually I think splitting the party in these types of situations makes sense. Don't need the whole party as a group wandering about asking questions together, it would just be odd.

(also, after picking on my own player for this, I went through and fixed my posting as player stuff. Sheesh, sorry about that)

Truth

Yea I agree. Not any real danger here...yet. So a split was a good call.

We have 3 of 4 ready to go so I'll post the continuation tonight...

...or tomorrow (sorry, got busy today)

No worries. This is meant to be fun, not an unpaying job.

Well, I do have certain expectations about how often players should post, and I should hold myself to those as well. Although I generally don't count weekends as 'game days' as people have real life to attend to, I usually like to have something posted Sunday night so everyone can post during the day on Monday.

Plus I get paid a fixed amount per post?

Don't you?

:-)

Yeah, I get paid in bitcoins. 10k per character.

Not gonna complain about that roll. Let's just hope there's some left for the sequel!

Whoa! Critical Percept!!! :-)

@Gamerdad that was for him to reference page 91 in the phb. If you have a pdf copy the page would be different. Or if you just have basic rules my class isn't even in there.

Yea I'm playing a ranger. We have a few special thingies we can do.

Sorry for holding everyone up, the wife's birthday related events to a a couple days more than I thought it would - and sadly no new puppy for her yet... Very sad birthday indeed.

Well what should we do? Move the party forward.

Agreed. Move on to the caves after looting the kobolds.

Looking for a check in from Volimance and Cerris. If I haven't heard from you in the next 24 hours we're going to move on without you. Longer than 48 hours and I'll start looking for replacements.

Alright, going to post something tonight so we can keep moving. I'll also post something in the general forums to see about replacements sometime this weekend if we haven't heard from the missing....

I'm still here. Recovering from surgery. I'll start posting again.

@cerris214 sorry to hear you had surgery hope all is going well.

Good to have ya back!

Hope your recovery goes well.

Thanks. It's tough but everything should be alright

Where do we keep track of HP on our character sheet. It's probably obvious and I'm just overlooking it.

There's a "Total HP" field right under the "Charisma" score.

Ok. So when I go to heal later I know that my max natural HP is twelve just because I know the formula is max hit dice + con bonus? This is a legitimate question not snark. Want that to be clear. I just expected there to be a different box to track current HP vs max. Thanks for your guidance!

Could we use the "Temp HP" box to track damage, and the "Total HP" box to track max health?

Ah, I see what you're asking. There is no place on the sheet to specifically keep track of maximum hit points. If you take a look at Elfog Oakshoulder's sheet and scroll down you'll see that for my characters I keep track of things like that in the "Notes" section.

The "Temp HP" field is used for spells/conditions that actually give you extra HP for a certain amount of time and may come into play at some point in the future of our game.

Seeing that you've all taken some damage this would be a good time to discuss healing options (assuming that last kobold doesn't manage to kill you all off). Options:

1) You should each have a healing potion from Pap that will cure 2d4+2 HP when consumed.
2) You each start with 1 Hit Die to use to regain hit points after a short rest (1 hour game time).
3) At the end of a long rest (8 hours game time) you regain all of your HPs (and one half of your Hit Die total)

Looks like you all have decided to bypass my perfectly laid not-a-trap. :-)

I'll have a continuation post up this evening.

Ha well better safe than sorry.

@ghotifish - You actually believed him? I'm thinking szemely would be making stew out of us by now if we crossed. Ah well, I'm sure he'll have opportunity to spring something else on us soon.

Haha, he even drew a map, and the players are like: all the nopes!

FINE! I'll just use it on a group that's much more appreciative of my many talents. :-)

(Actually I'm already lining it up for use in another game. :-))

Testing, 1...2...3... check, check... is this thing on?

Yep. Weekends are usually dead. I'll move things along tonight. Assume everyone will chase the dog unless I see differently.

Hey guys this should be ok. Just don't knock anything down the well alright.

Recovery progressing well?

Yea feeling like a new man. They can do amazing things these days.

Will post a continuation tonight when I'm home from work.

Going to give GamerDad until tomorrow and then we'll play, "What would Thuron do?"

Cool cool, weekend is just around the corner though and I will be traveling for the start of a vacation. Shouldn't be any more scattered than normal except on the actual travel days.

Weekend are notoriously slow on here, so that's no big thing. Have fun on vacation!

Give ghotifish until tomorrow evening then I'll move things along.

As one storyteller to another, what kinds of things do you put in your notes to yourself?

Most of the time its stat blocks for NPCs or monsters, easy to keep track of HPs and the like that way. Other times it's just little notes to remind myself of things like marching order, initiative, cool things that might happen, etc....

It's a good idea, thanks.

Looks like we're about done with this one. Looks like two players (of the four) have dropped out and we're close to finishing this part as it is. I'll leave it to Qrallog and Ceris214 as to what we want to do here. Some options:

1) Recruit two more people and continue (the search for Heddy Laopole, perhaps?)
2) End it here (I'm thinking of starting a Tyranny of Dragons campaign, you two would have first crack if interested)
3) Other options?

Looks like we finished the storyline. I'm fine with wrapping up and ending it here if that's the common position.

I'll leave that up to you. If you want to end this that's fine. I'd love to join your next game. If possible could I use this character? I'm kind of attached to this one and would like to see him progress.

I'd have no problem with you keeping your characters from this game and using them in the new one. I'll probably go ahead and release your PCs this weekend and retire the game. Once the new one if up I'll let anyone here have a crack at signing up for it and we'll go from there.

Thanks for playing, guys!

Thanks for letting me join Szemely, it was a great setting, and I loved your take on dopplegangers and blink dogs

I had a good time. It was my maiden voyage and kinda got lost at the end. Thanks for the game!