Basic Rules:

• The Golden Rule Treat others how you would like to be treated.
• Minimum Required Posting Rate 2-5/week (weekend excluded).
• Attendance One full week of inactivity without given notice will result in you being removed from the game.  Notices will be posted in the Out of Character thread.
• Combat During your initiative turn, you are given 24 full hours to post (weekends excluded).  If you do not post your actions within that time, your character will be NPC’d.  You may post your actions outside of the initiative order; however combat will flow in accordance with the initiative order.
• Questions If you have any questions please, PLEASE, ask!

This message was last edited by the GM at 20:52, Fri 05 June 2009.

Post your combat information (rolls, checks, etc.) within and at the bottom of your posts.  Here is an example:

Your combat information may be inserted into a private line to myself if you wish; but if not, please color it Orange.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:45, Wed 08 Apr 2009.

ARMOR AS DAMAGE REDUCTION
The following is an alternative system that allows armor to absorb the damage of attacks, rather than a system that provides an abstract way of determining when a hit does actual harm. Like all the rules presented in this chapter, it is a variant to the base system of the Pathfinder RPG. It is for GMs who want armor to reduce damage rather than increase Armor Class, and replaces the normal rules for armor.
In this system, a creatures no longer has an Armor Class. Instead it has a Defense score that a foe's attack roll must meet or exceed to hit the creature. Then any damage is reduced by damage reduction based on the creature's armor worn and any natural armor bonus the creature has.

Defense
In this alternative system, a creature does not have an Armor Class (AC); it instead has a Defense score. Defense is similar to touch AC in the standard Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules, but it also adds the shield bonus (including any enhancement bonus to the shield), and any enhancement bonus to armor.

Defense = 10 + shield bonus + Dexterity modifier + other modifiers (including armor's enhancement bonus, but not armor bonus or natural armor bonus)

Defense represents how easy or difficult it is to hit a creature. The shield bonus is added because a creature is considered to be actively blocking attacks with its shield whenever it can.

Armor as Damage Reduction
Armor in this system keeps all of its normal statistics and qualities, but its armor bonus (including any enhancement bonus added to armor bonus and natural armor bonus) is converted to DR/armor. The DR an armor provides is equal to its total armor bonus with a +1 bonus at 5th level or at 5 Hit Dice, with an increase to that bonus of +1 for every five levels above 5th level, or every 5 Hit Dice over 5 Hit Dice (to a maximum of +4 to DR at 20th level or at 20 or more Hit Dice), provided that the creature wearing the armor is also proficient with the armor.

DR/Armor: This type of DR blocks the damage of all attacks that would normally be affected by DR, based on the composition of the armor (see Table). Unlike most forms of damage reduction, DR/armor stacks with other types of DR. For instances, when fighting a skeleton with DR 5/bludgeoning and DR 4/armor (+2 for armor, +2 for natural armor), the skeleton's DR/armor reduces 9 points of damage from non-bludgeoning attacks, and 4 damage from bludgeoning weapon attacks. Magic weapons and attacks from Large or larger creatures bypass the DR 4/armor, but not the DR 5/bludgeoning.

Table: Armor Composition and DR

This message was last edited by the GM at 01:03, Fri 25 Mar 2016.

Skill Challenge (encounter type)
A Skill Challenge is a new rule implemented in the D&D 4e Core Rules.  Essentially it takes encounters that do not quite fit into the Role Playing or Combat format and add to them speed and renewed playability.  An added benefit of these encounters are that they allow the players a fair amount of creativity in the encounter, and offer more ways to hone their problem-solving abilities.

The Setup: The GM will describe the scene and label it as a Skill Challenge.  The goal should be clearly defined (i.e. chase the cloaked figure through the city streets, find your way through the labyrinth, discover the location of the cult’s hidden base, etc).

The Delivery: During the encounter, the players will take turns on their initiative order.  Upon their turns, they will be allowed to make a skill check of their choice and describe why it is this skill is relevant to the situation at hand.  For example: “I will tumble around the corner in order to pick up speed during our chase.”  The GM reserves the right to deem a skill check irrelevant, and assign bonuses and/or penalties as necessary.

**As a specific House Rule, a player cannot use the same skill twice in a row; nor can the party use duplicate skill checks in a single round.  Example, Player1 uses the spellcraft skill and describes its use as the casting a spell.  No other character may use spellcraft during this round, although they may use another skill and describe it as if they were casing a spell (i.e. knowledge [arcana]).  The next round, another character may use spellcraft, however Player1 cannot.

The Results:  Success earns that player one step towards their goal, which has a pre-set success versus failure limit.  Once the players have made enough successes to reach that limit, they have reached their goal and overcome the challenge and are awarded experience, plot hooks, or some other reward.  If they fail too many checks they ultimately fail, and receive some type of penalty (i.e. lose their quarry, lost in the labyrinth, waste too much time in locating the cultist’s base and possibly do not thwart their activities, etc).

**Hint: 3 failures result in failure for every skill challenge, although the amount of successes, and their DCs, will change with the skill challenge's difficulty.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:21, Fri 28 Jan 2011.

Action Points
Once per encounter, you can spend an Action Point.  When you spend an Action Point, it’s gone, but you can earn more.

EARNING ACTION POINTS

• PCs start with 1 Action Point. (Hostile creatures usually have no Action Points.)
• You gain 1 Action Point when you reach a milestone.
• After you take an extended rest, you lose any unspent Action Points, but you start fresh with 1 Action Point.

Most often, you spend an Action Point to take an extra action during your turn.

SPENDING AN ACTION POINT: A FREE ACTION

• During Your Turn: You can spend an Action Point only during your turn, but never during a surprise round.
• Gain an Extra Action: You gain an extra action this turn.  You decide if the action is a swift action, a standard action or a move action.
• Reroll a Failed Save or Skill Challenge Check
• Once per Encounter: After you spend an Action Point, you must take a short rest before you can spend another. (Some hostile creatures can spend more than 1 Action Point per encounter.)