I only want to take the reaction for uncanny dodge if Pell has a reaction available at the time he suffered the damage. No special favors! If he didn't have his reaction available, then please forge ahead with the full 37 hp damage. Thanks! (let me know)
Well, here's the issue for me. I failed to adequately draw attention that the wyrmlings were out of melee range (that's why they provoked attacks of opportunity-they moved away from melee with everyone either back underwater or into the air). In my initial post, I said that some were 20ft underwater and others were 50ft flying above. Except for my spellcasters, everyone wrote their post to engage in melee with the monsters. That tells me that I did not adequately describe the situation so to rectify that, the only way to make a melee attack to work is to retcon your posts somewhat into a readied action (which would use your reaction) for when the monsters are in melee range (or in Ursus' case, just fudge the narrative a bit).
I had two options when I wrote up the second round. I could have paused and corrected everyone who made melee attacks. That would have slowed down the game further as we waited on them to update posts. Or I could roll with it and make it work as readied actions and choose to not let the wyrmlings provoke AoOs since it was my choice to push the game forward took away a reaction that the players didn't choose to lose. That's why I'm okay with letting you use Uncanny Dodge. I took your reaction for game pacing sake. You didn't make that informed choice and had you been informed, you likely would not have made that choice.
It's up to you. I don't see it as a special favor as much as it is bumps in the learning curve. We can handle it a few ways. 1. You can take the Uncanny Dodge and I'll hopefully communicate the particulars of the battlefield better in the future. 2. We can retcon your prior action (because you wouldn't have taken a melee action if you knew you couldn't reach it) and preserve your reaction for Uncanny Dodge. 3. You can take full damage.
Personally, I felt that the first option was the simplest and fairest since the issue stemmed from my failures and liberties taken. I'm also fine with number 2. I would feel bad about you taking #3 since it was my choice and not yours that created that situation. Again though, it's your choice.
I know it's probably a weird standard to hold a PbP game to, but I'm comparing the issues to what would have happened if we were playing around a table. If you had said that you wanted Pell to stab the one under him, I would have immediately told you that it's out of range and given you the option to Ready an Action or choose another action, and that would be it. Due to the issues of PbP, it got away from me and everyone misunderstood what was happening (which means I did not draw enough attention to the dragonlings' present locations). I don't want to punish your character for my mistake and a situation that would not have happened if we were playing face to face.
