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Post by GreyKatana on Jun 17, 2014 17:56:55 GMT -8
Is it re-rolled every round?
We rolled a tie today, so is the entire combat gonna be tie?
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Post by ecocola on Jun 17, 2014 19:27:01 GMT -8
I do it per encounter, with ties i give the win to the monster, mostly because i like seeing my players dance as they try to fight!
Too bad one of my players is good and almost immediately figured out the Pit Slime is invulnerable to weapons, and tried fire.
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Post by xhaosdaemon on Jun 18, 2014 5:27:16 GMT -8
I re-roll it every round because I like the idea of a dynamic combat where it is never clear who will have the upper hand from round to round. I also do individual initiatives for players and monsters (although I will group large amounts of foes into clumps because rolling 20 initiatives sucks). One way to adjudicate ties is to use initiative modifier as a tie-breaker, so if two people tie but one has a +1 to initiative and the other has +0 the one with the bonus goes first. Doing initiative once per encounter definitely saves time but for me at a cost of the back and forth of combat. Per encounter initiative does make much more sense though in a PbP game because the more rolls the more things slow down.
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Post by rexbannon on Jun 18, 2014 5:54:14 GMT -8
I agree with Xhaosdaemon however I have my group roll for Initiative per encounter much like ecocola does. Only difference is that i have the player and the monster that tie for initiative roll a D6 to see who goes first. The Initiative modifier rule is a good idea to btw.
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Post by providence13 on Jun 18, 2014 9:42:51 GMT -8
The init system for ME is a nice change of pace.
It handles so many things.
Does the critter ambush its prey? Almost every entry for critters says "if it wins init, it has snuck up" or "the group flanked" or otherwise gets the drop on the opponent.
I like the rule that init for a "forward observer/point man" can determine init for an entire group.
This saves a lot of time for me.
For me, talking about init also brings up other combat related topics. Sometimes I change and test rules to the frustration of my players, but I'm looking for a way that works best for us/me.
1) Do you guys require intentions to be stated for the rnd?
2) Do you "init then intent" or "intent then init"?
3) Use of Parry: We are now using Parries in combat and they are a powerful tool to keep people alive!
It makes no sense to me for combatants to announce parries; "I attack this guy, attack that next (because of MA), then parry the third 'cause he looks like he can dish out some serious damage with that blade arms".
So I allow parries to be a natural adjustment to combat. When rolling init in a combat situation your purpose is to hit the guy. If you see that they have the jump on you, you could/should go into an immediate defensive stance even though you planned on attacking. Or you could say that "OK, he got init, there's no way he's getting through my tac' armor with that knife. Screw it, let my armor take it".
I also see why Trait init bonus is capped off at +4. That is a big deal for 1d10. Is it realistic for a game with a huge number range? Maybe not, but it's easy. There should be at least a chance for the underdog to get the jump.
5) Multiple attk/rnd and init:
Let's say you get 4 att/rnd and you drop the foe with the first swing. Your other opponent is more than 3m away and not trying to close.
RAW, your init doesn't carry over after 3m.
This is hard for one of my players to remember because he's so used to other games where init carries the entire rnd. 3 sec rnds solve a lot of those problems, in my opinion.
6) How does it really play out?:
For my game, I allow the highest init to attempt all of their actions, and then the slower init goes/reacts. As stated above, the exception is parry; the defender can parry a melee attk as long as they still have attacks for an item that could parry.
An example: an opponent with 3 attacks attacking an opponent with one attack. The opponent with one attack decides reciprocate. The one attack guy loses init, gets attacked and changes to parry. He doesn't actually know the attacker is attacking 3 times. That was all of their (one) melee attacks for the rnd so they will just have to take their chances and hope for the best on the other 2. If all 3 of the faster attackers blows miss, one because of defender parry, that is all the defender can do for the rnd. It's not like they didn't "get to go". they actually chose to block the swing. They only get one attk/rnd so that's the end of that rnd. Both combatants roll init for the next.
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Post by ecocola on Jun 19, 2014 7:33:01 GMT -8
uhhh...whoever gets higher initiative goes first. I don't even hold to "alright you got 5 and he got 7 you go second and i'll be damned if you post early!" Basically if the monster wins and all the players lose, then it's monster then players, monster than players. If it's something weird then it's player monster players, then back to monster/players/monster/players since PbP posting is slow enough as it is to have to slow down to say "alright so he goes first and makes three attacks, but he can't move 2.5m the swing his fist..." the way we go is, "So you want to impale that moaner over there? what's half your MV? Within range? alright you move and attack, roll it."
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Post by xhaosdaemon on Jun 19, 2014 21:45:56 GMT -8
I think in a PbP game you have to streamline things as much as you can so I am sure what you are doing is fine. Another way to make things a little quicker is to roll attack and damage rolls at the same time. If they miss you ignore the damage otherwise you don't have to wait to confirm the hit to the player then wait for them to roll damage.
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Post by GreyKatana on Jun 21, 2014 9:48:35 GMT -8
I don't know about you guys but in my PbP I've rolled all the dices for my players. I post the detailed mechanics after the narrative and my players like it a lot. Much much much faster than waiting for players to roll.
Here's an example from a Labyrinth Lord game:
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Post by providence13 on Jun 22, 2014 7:36:09 GMT -8
I don't know about you guys but in my PbP I've rolled all the dice for my players. That has to be faster than waiting for replies.  As a player, I like rolling dice. Random number generators are ok in a pinch. |
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Post by ecocola on Jun 24, 2014 14:19:25 GMT -8
I think in a PbP game you have to streamline things as much as you can so I am sure what you are doing is fine. Another way to make things a little quicker is to roll attack and damage rolls at the same time. If they miss you ignore the damage otherwise you don't have to wait to confirm the hit to the player then wait for them to roll damage. Oh yeah we do that too. As for grey katana's method, i'm not too into it. I like having the players do some work, also as a player i also like rolling dice. |
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Post by providence13 on Jun 25, 2014 6:08:11 GMT -8
Rolling damage with Strike...
Even with only 2 players and 4 characters, rolling damage at the same time as Strike would be a hassle for us.
Using Rank based crits really does make a big difference for modifying damage.
Having "max damage" or "max random damage +" options would slow us down a bit, I think. Wouldn't apply to everyone. Only playing 1/month doesn't keep it all fresh in the old brain pan. It'd be one more step and quite often the defender is dead before all attacks get resolved.
Maybe we need a "max damage by weapon type" on our character sheets... I'll have to work that into the spreadsheet.
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