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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doghead" data-source="post: 4913141" data-attributes="member: 8243">For what it is worth, and you can do with it as you wish, I don't think issue 1 is really much of an issue. From my experience (I have run three GnG pbp games, iirc) those characters built for combat tend to be significantly 'tougher' as a result of their abilities, skills, and equipment: higher Defence values means that they are harder to hit; heaver armour, higher Con and the Toughness feat mean they can take more damage before being knocked down. DnD uses an abstracted value (HP's) to represent a characters ability to duck and weave, defect and take damage. GnG provides mechanics for it.The defence roll, if handled by the DM makes no difference to the pacing of combat. The critical hit system is more problematic. Its not particularly pbp friendly. I eventually settled on using 'Bypass Armour' as the default critical hit, and handled all rolls myself*. If players wanted to use a different Critical Hit, they had to announce that when they posted their actions.Using a fixed value for Defence would simplify things somewhat. But it would also take away from potential of the system by limiting the range of outcomes possible. I had a third level character drop an owlbear (a large critter, with all the advantages that that bestows in GnG) with one blow because he rolled well, and the owlbear didn't. That being said, in later games I did go with 2d10 rather d20 for attack and defence rolls. While extreme high/low combinations were still possible, they were less likely. Which in turn put more weight on the characters abilities, skills and equipment. Which in turn tended to favour the PC's, as they generally had the edge in these areas.dogheadaka thotd* Eventually I just let slide the whole 'confirming threatened criticals' thing. While the system is very elegant, it is quite involved, so to keep things moving I just 'eyeballed' it mostly.</blockquote>

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