A few things about combat:
1. Feel free to roll your own initatives, saves, attacks, etc. Please post the rolls as you post your intended actions. I will do a summary post and roll all actions up into a single, fluid post and if there are any modifiers, etc, I will add them in at that point (and make any subsequent rulings, changes, and whatnot).
2. During combat, please use the title field when posting. Put your character's name followed by your hit points (Current/Total) and AC, in the following manner:
Fred, HPs: 12/60, AC: 5
3. Making/using battle plans: If your characters want to have "pre-defined" battle plans (i.e. "Enact battle plan: COBRA" - which means that each character already knows what he/she is suppossed to do), I fully support that effort. I think that it works with your group in particular, given your background, but I often encourage the use of this sort of tactic in general. So much so, in fact, that I will often offer a synergy bonus to combat for the characters (the exact bonus depends on the situation, but it is always at least +1 to all attack rolls and saves). Obviously, this requires a bit more effort on the part of the players, but I think it goes to building a solid and strong party in the long run. Feel free to use this thread to compose and create any battle plans.
If you do not use battle plans, then I highly advise you informing your party members of your actions in combat. This, in effect, does two things: first, it by necessity keeps combat from becoming the old "I hit, I did 12 points of damage" routine and encourages continued role-play throughout the combat encounter. Second, it generally helps your character from accidentially (or often unknowingly) running into the area of effect of a
fireball, for instance. (Please note that Listen checks and the like will still apply (I can't make it all safe and cozy now, can I?
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
))
Basically, I treat your character's actions in the same way I treat their knowledge - unless your character actively shares their intentions with the rest of the party, then the rest of the party, simply put, is ignorant of those intentions.
EDIT: After reading hafrogman's post, I decided that this needed a bit of clarification. If your actions are something that you are fairly sure that all of the party can see and/or hear (i.e. raising your hammer to the heavens and screaming a war cry) feel free to leave that part out of spoilers. However, if you are doing something a bit more mental or skill focused in nature (i.e. running over the magical forumulae for the dimensions of a wall of blades or harnassing your inner ki for a stunning blow) then post that sort of thing in spoilers.
Hopefully, that makes a bit more sense.
Thanks, hafrogman, for bringing that to light!
I think that is it, but I feel like I am forgetting something...
Anywho, let me know how that sounds to everyone.
