General OoC discussion

Hey @spaceseeker19 and fellow Dungeon Busters,

Just a quick note to let you know I will be traveling with the family to Japan from 18 May to 1 June. I will be very unlikely to be posting during this period, so if you could please role play Antonius for me would be greatly appreciated 😁.

I will put up a reminder closer to my departure.

Thank you for the advance notice!

Folks: I was intentionally NOT posting a map of the Jarl farm because I was thinking we might play this encounter with just descriptions. But let me put it to all of you: do you want to play this encounter with a map, or without one?

Well, that's very clear! Thanks, everyone.

Shall Sora and Dell wait until the bandits are up by the front porch before we use our range attacks?

Not a bad plan, the closer we can get them to Kazza, Berthold and Antonius would be best.

I was hoping one of our three tanks would attack Abe and hopefully finish him off because he attacks first in the round and will be able to attack Sora.

@mathias0077 That's a good plan. I wish I would've thought of that -- not that it mattered with my roll. I'll consider the initiative order in the future.

We can chalk it up to our relative inexperience. We're all level 1 and never worked together before this.

On a normal turn, a player has Movement, an Action, and a possible Bonus Action. Players also have a possible Reaction that can take effect on your turn or on another character's turn.

Movement allows you to move up to your speed, and you can also break up your move around your actions, eg move 10', shoot a crossbow, move 20'.

Actions can be one of the following: Attack, Cast Spell, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Ready, Use Object, or something else that the DM determines might take up the entire round like searching through a bookshelf.

Bonus Actions are specified by an ability or skill. 2nd-level rogues, for example, can use a Bonus Action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide. The monk can use a Bonus Action to make an unarmed attack IF they take the Attack action with a monk weapon or unarmed strike.

Reactions are an instant response to some kind of trigger. For example, the Shield spell can be triggered by taking damage; the other character hit you with an attack, so you spend your Reaction to cast Shield to increase your AC and hopefully turn that hit into a miss. You can only take one Reaction until the start of your next turn.

The Ready action is a special case. You basically set a condition or circumstance that will trigger either an action OR movement (not both). You must use your Reaction to accomplish this. So you might say, "I wait until the bandit enters the room, then I will attack them with my sword," or, "If my friend appears at the intersection, I will move 30 feet into the alley." Then your turn basically ends and you wait to see if that condition is met; if it is not met, you don't do anything (NB you can also choose to NOT do what you said you would if the trigger is met).

The tricky part about Ready is that because you're spending a Reaction to do it, sometimes you don't get to perform other things you normally would. Using the Monk as an example, if you take the Ready action to strike the bandit with your fist, you're technically NOT taking the Attack action, which means you can't use your Bonus Action because 1) the rules say it has to follow an Attack action, and 2) BAs are taken on your turn, not someone else's.

The same goes for warriors with Extra Attack making an Opportunity Attack; you're spending a Reaction to make one melee attack, but by rule you don't get to use Extra Attack because you didn't take the Attack action.

Correct; this all means that Sora could make her Martial Arts attack as a Bonus Action whether or not she moved (although in this case, she doesn't have to, as Dhit is still right next to her). It also means that Dell cannot Attack and Hide on the same turn, as both are Actions (though he will be able to Hide as a Bonus Action if he advances to level 2 as a Rogue).

Sorry, I edited my post

I’m travelling with the family from Wednesday to Sunday. Can’t guarantee I’ll be able to post, NPC my character as needed.

Just to assure everyone that CancerMan did describe attacking Gull, not just anybody. CM and I both were playing this up for dramatic effect, but had someone else come through the door first, I would have assumed that Amnestria would not have used her reaction to attack.

I liked the way it was written, suited her character.

To quote a character from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Let’s not bicker and argue over who killed who."

😂

Sorry for the long delay; it's been non-stop for me all weekend and today until now.

Zombies are ridiculous. I have run the Starter Box adventure, Lost Mines of Phandelver, at least half a dozen times. In that adventure, there is a location where the party encounters a necromancer accompanied by TWELVE zombies.

Most of the time, that's fine.

But it really depends on the die rolls. One run-through, that single encounter took all of a four-hour session and half of the next session afterward, because the zombies kept making their Undead Fortitude rolls. You all are just facing six zombies; hopefully the rest of them won't keep making their rolls in this encounter like Dina has been doing!