Anyone Willing To Run Kingmaker? (Full)

[SelcSilverhand]

Posting order for initiative works out really well in my experience for PbP. You don't have to edit your actions if someone's action later changes your decision and you don't have to wait for someone else to post first before your turn comes up.

 

[Kaodi]

I generally prefer to play by by individually rolled initiative as per the RAW, but I am fine with trying order of posting initiative. Should certainly speed things up somewhat at the very least.

 

[Scotley]

It does seem to help to make actions in order of posting. I mainly wanted to get a decision up front, because it can devalue some feats and traits. Feel free to adjust your choices.

 

[Kaodi]

How do you determine each teams bonus to the initiative roll with this method if I may ask?

 

[Scotley]

Excellent question. I've seen a rough party average used vs. an enemy average. I've also seen it done heavily modified by situation. In that case I don't there were even rolls in many situations. This is obviously going to be most important when sneak attacks come into play.

 

[Kaodi]

Well, we have +0, +2, +2, +3, +3, +4, I believe. When you say average though, do you mean you average the initiative bonuses and roll, or that you roll everyones' initiative separately and then average the sum of them all for each side?

Something I have also been thinking at the moment, though I am not sure how to make an arithmetic rule that would produce the intuitive result in every situation, would be a sort of "majoritarian" system. The basic idea is that the side that goes first is the one whose majority of initiative scores are higher than the majority of the other team, even if the average is lower, strictly speaking. This is best illustrated by supposing on our side we have rolled something like: 20, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. And their side has rolled: 11, 11. The average of the side with the one 20 and five 10s is 11 2/3, better than the side with the two 11s, but the 11s are better than five out of six of their opponents. So the 11s would be rewarded with going first.

In any case, I would think to that no matter how we do it if we are averaging out we might as well just let you roll all of our initiatives for us.

 

[SelcSilverhand]

How do you determine each teams bonus to the initiative roll with this method if I may ask?

I average the party's initiative and roll it then roll the average of the encounter's initiative.
The way I looked at it, everyone that takes improved initiative or traits that have initiative bonuses still raises the average party initiative so there would still be that benefit. However rolling each person individually and averaging the totals would also work well. That may be a better option come to think about it. If you were facing an encounter with several different enemies both systems work since they will have comparable averages. If you face a single enemy with a high dex/initiative then the advantage goes to the enemy since his "average" will be higher for the roll.

 

[Scotley]

I had thought averaging the bonus to +2 and rolling once would be most interesting. If I roll six times and then average won't that tend to flatten out the results over time? It has been a while since I took statistics, but I would think you'll get a more even distribution rolling once per encounter. I also expect to use some situational mods. If it doesn't work for ya'll in practice we can always make a change.

 

[Kaodi]

I am not sure abut flattening... Here is an example I just rolled for six character versus eight enemies of irrelevant nature with a +1 initiative bonus.

Us: 7, 18, 17, 22, 6, 10, Avg 13 1/3. Them: 11, 12, 14, 9, 2, 14, 10, 11, Avg 10.375. One roll each is 9 vs 11. Majoritarian is them.

Us: 1, 11, 22, 15, 10, 6, Avg. 10.83->. Them: 8, 2, 3, 12, 18, 14, 12, 15, Avg. 10.5. One roll each is 1 vs 8. Majoritarian is them.

Us: 18, 8, 4, 20, 10, 8, Avg. 11 1/3. Them: 12, 21, 13, 3, 6, 9, 8, 12, Avg. 10.5. One roll each is 18 vs 12. Majoritarian is them.

Us: 6, 11, 20, 22, 14, 17, Avg. 15. Them: 2, 12, 18, 16, 9, 21, 16, 14, Avg. 13.5. One roll each is 6 vs. 2. Majoritarian is us?

So by roll average we would win four. On bonus average we would win two. And on majoritarian we would win one, with those rolls.

I think the lesson here may definitely be: Do not do roll for everyone and then average it, hehehe... That definitely seems to flatten the math. I am not sure if those numbers suggest majoritarian favours the side with more people, or if it was just a fluke that they won that way. I guess bonus averaging is probably the simple solution then. And does not involve a ton of adding, heheh...

 

[SelcSilverhand]

Not sure where you want him for the ambush, but Liam could either be inside with everyone or possibly mounted and lying in wait between A11 on the map and the outside wall.