Out of Character General Chat

That is up to you guys. If players are comfortable with it then you can agree to

Part of the introduction is that you are eating together before hitting the road.

@Ironmonger42 Could the Chapter 1 thread be pinned too so it floats to the top? It'll be the thread we use the most after all ^^

Our ideas and backstories are all over the place, so at this point, it's probably fine to just assume that this dinner at the fortress is the first time many of us have met. I do like the idea of Hrafe insisting on a ceremony once we're established as a party, though. That would lead to some interesting roleplay! :)

Regarding how long we should roleplay meeting each other -- I'm not one to yuck someone else's yum, so we can roleplay out the scene a bit. But keeping up momentum can be challenging in PbP, so it's probably best for us to jump into the adventure proper before too many days pass IRL.

If that is the general sentiment, after each person says hi to the rest of the group we can time skip to traveling to Boltstike.

I'm about to head to bed. I see a little roleplay is still happening. Here's my timeline (comment if you would prefer more time):

In order to move the story, I'll want to be on my computer, but I'll be working in the office tomorrow. When I get home sometime in the evening I'll set the scene for you to leave the fort and hit the road. If you want to do any further roleplay, you have until tomorrow evening unless I hear a desire to delay for roleplay. If I don't hear anything, I'll interrupt any conversation and say something like "this conversation continues until an hour passes and commander Yushif sends for you to come to him"

I'm good with wrapping it up.

Yep, enjoying the roleplay, but we can continue such interactions on the road and at the tower. :)

I'm enjoying the roleplay as well but I'm happy to move along. It seems we're nearing that natural break regardless.

Lets go!

So, Makasi or Edgar is up. Just so I'm clear, I can draw a weapon, move and attack in a single turn: A quick action, then a move action, then a standard action. I also can do various free actions as long as the GM will permit them -- dropping something, talking, activating a magic item.

So where do Invocations fall into this chain? Are they standard actions? If I cast my life invocation, does that mean I don't get an attack this round?

You get one of each kind of action (standard, quick, and move) and unlimited free actions within reason. Right now, your weapon is not drawn, and it seems it takes a quick action to draw a weapon. Hrafe technically could not have raged on round 1 as he needed his quick action to draw his weapon. I will let that slide since I only now realized that.

As such, you can quick action draw your weapon, move to engage an enemy, and standard action attack.

As for invocations as you took the paladin feat to get a cleric domain, it is a quick action to activate all invocations and they last an entire battleI will add the list of actions to the useful references thread

Will combat always begin with the enemies at nearby range to the party, or do I have the option to start Raphel further away in future combats?

In the future, I will clarify your marching order. If you are willing to put a little distance from your allies you might be able to help far from the enemy at the start, at the risk that if there is any rear ambush you might be more vulnerable. Right now everyone is near because they are ambushing from both sides of the road, not from the front

Thanks for the clarification on actions. Good to know that the Invocations are quick actions. It won't help in this case, since we were ambushed, so I need that quick action to draw my weapon. Is it possible to spot ambushes, or is it just kind of left to the narrative? Presumably, once we enter a known hostile area, we'll be on high alert with weapons drawn. But I understand that in this case, we were just walking along. I just want to make sure I'm using my character correctly. :)

The only reason your weapons are not drawn is because you were on a road traveling and the vast majority of people sheathe their weapons when going long distances so they don't waste strength holding it in their hands. If you were doing the ambushing or you knew the area had enemies (like going into a dungeon or enemy camp) or such, I would assume weapons were out.

Monsters don't have stats for things like stealth. What I could do in the future is have you all make a wisdom check using one of the 3 DCs for your current tier of play (15, 20, or 25 for adventurer tier play) and let you add any backgrounds that justify being trained to be alert (like anything related to being a soldier or scout). If you succeed, you spot the enemy in time to take a quick action before combat starts. Otherwise in a situation like this you would have had your weapon still sheathed. Thoughts?

If the game doesn't have default rules for preempting ambushes, no real need to complicate things. I could maybe see you offering a roll like that to JUST the PCs with the appropriate background, maybe. But you could roll it for us just to speed things up.

But, again, no skin off my nose if generally I'll be able to get off an invocation and not also have to worry about drawing a weapon.

For combat questions, check first if you find the answer here:
https://www.13thagesrd.com/combat-rules/

Having all of us make the skill check to notice an ambush would make it way too hard to succeed for the monsters IMO. Perhaps just roll for the one who's most likely to spot it, based on the fiction of what they're up to?