[OOC] The First Age of Man

[Axel]

I like grid less for PbP too. It reduces opportunities for "gaming" the board. In some circumstances it may be warranted though they should be obvious from the start. Grid less also helps the "theatre of the mind"!

Some additional quantitative information on distances would be handy. At low-ish levels, spell range can be a huge difference between good or otherwise outcomes (short range spells are >> medium range). From Tekai's perspective it will help with guessing whether to take range penalties or to delay, as well.

For a first combat encounter with a new party, this one wasn't too bad. The party as a whole rolled quite high, which skewed the outcome to a massacre (Tekai hit 4/4 needing 9's to hit, for example). Invert the rolls and it would be a very different outcome.

Group initiative I find only really works with mega-battles, but my DMing experience is wholly based on tabletop. For PbP it could work, and reduce the three day wait for one person. Try it and see?

 

[Voda Vosa]

I second Shay, a grid might come in as necessary if there are a lot of hazards, and complicated terrain layout. Otherwise I can work gridless given that the distances and positions are clearly detailed.
As for initiatives, You could roll only one initiative for the enemies, and the PCs who roll above go first and the one who rollled bellow go after the enemies, after the first round the PCs who rolled first will also go, so you can consider them as one group. Example:

1st round:
-Quick PCs
-Enemies
-Slow PCs + 2nd round quick Pcs
-Enemies
-Slow PCs + 3rd round quick Pcs
-Enemies

and so forth

 

[Piston Honda]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll give you guys a better idea of location of things in the future, but I was also allowing for you guys to help define the terrain (Tekai getting behind a tree, Sheng's trail, so on).

I think we'll try Voda's suggestion, I had done group initiative for all NPCs involved.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

The character interaction in this group is pretty freaking awesome so far. In some games it feels forced at first, but not this one.

 

[Axel]

Sometimes characters just seem to fit.

And I think we're probably all a bunch of crusty oldies compared to the usual crowd.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Hey now, who are you calling crusty?

 

[Voda Vosa]

And I think we're probably all a bunch of crusty oldies compared to the usual crowd.

so true

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Quick request for the DM - Could we get a link to the campaign wiki in the first post of this thread, the IC thread, or your sig please? I wanted to look something up and had to go digging through this thread to find it. Thanks.

 

[Piston Honda]

Link in first post of both threads and a convenient link to them edited into my last post.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Link in first post of both threads and a convenient link to them edited into my last post.

Groovy! Thanks!