OK, We'll try Drive.  You should get an invite to a folder containing character sheets for you to edit.  Let me know if you have any issues.

Anyone else get stressed out planning a tank character knowing that poor HP dice rolls can wreck their plan?

That's what lay on hands is for. And cleric. If Dixon is going to play a dwarf cleric (is that what you are doing?) then he should be soaking damage too.

Also, first level max.

Just don't get hit.

The thing holding me back is feeling like we need an arcane caster. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

I was considering how most builds the HP is a bonus to living but if your character is designed to take a lot of abuse your effectiveness is more tied to your hp roll.

If I was a sorcerer I would not sweat hp but as a melee strong paladin it effect his value each level. Like if the sorcerer had to roll for new spells.

I'm not asking for a change, just stating that they have more up to chance on how awesome they can be than some other classes.

Always nice to have a massive damage output against things with a lot of hp

Well, you can also look at book average (half HD rounded up) is the baseline and you can roll to make it especially good, or bad. So in the sorcerer example it would be like rolling 1d3-1 so you can gain and extra spell, or not gain any, or you can just take the base.

Question for seth, will we be using the "Identify magic items with short rest" rule, or the identify with identify house rule?

In reply to Joe (msg # 19):

Let's play you can get a general idea of the thing with a short rest and get the specifics with identify.

Yes Joe I am playing a dwarf Cleric and a hearty one at that!

Really feeling the new campaign excitement. Looking forward to getting started!

In reply to Dixon (msg # 22):

I am not posting this for political reasons. I am posting it for "I didn't know this game existed" reasons.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe...ltimate-tic-tac-toe/

Tried playing against myself.  It is tricky game.

Here is what I am thinking for food and water.  Each time you enter civilization it is assumed to stock up to cover 15 days without considering cost/time/effort, or having to mention it.  After 15 days away from civilization you are out of food and water unless you have specifically made arrangements to have more than the standard 15 days.  Follow rules in PHB for half rations, and going without food and water, basically exhaustion is the penalty.

I would also like to try to keep track of ammunition.  Similar to food and water, you automatically get 20 mundane missiles for whatever ranged weapon you carry each time you enter civilization without having to mention it or deduct any cost.  If you want more, you have state that and deduct cost.  If you want to retrieve them, you must state that, and you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

Fair?

I would be happy with that arrangement.

Seems fair to me. Out of curiosity if I want to steal the system for games I run, are you deducting some amount of gold from loot or just being generous?

I'm being generous.  I think 15 days rations and 20 arrows is like 8.5 gp.  I think that amount will be pretty trivial, pretty quick, so I don't feel like I'm being too generous.  Usually when you get to civilization you are probably due for a little bonus anyway.

I think the real generosity is in not having to think about it much, which applies to players and DM.  But, I hope it also still allows for "survival" situations where appropriate.

I will be on site and unable to post most of the day.

Does on site mean you are at your office and that normally you are working from home, or does it mean you will be at a customer site?

On site for us means that we are at our normal location, most of the time. Off site means working remotely from home or at a supplier.

Also, I keep wondering if Seth is a vampire, because I heard once that "the world is a vampire".

Was it while you were smashing pumpkins or smiling politely?

On site for me means on a job or work site or otherwise in the field.

I will be camping this weekend so I vote the actual game starts Monday. I suspect Seth has a bit of backstory to insert into the forum anyways. Maps, general world information, etc. Any common knowledge we should be aware of.

Sorry, I have been super busy at work.  I will try to get some things posted over the weekend.  I have a few rules I would like to discuss.

1 and 20
I want to play RAW for 1's and 20's.  My understanding of this is explained below.

I would like to play that 1's are auto misses for attack rolls, but just a regular miss.  So nothing necessarily bad happens if you roll a 1 on an attack other than you miss.  In my opinion, basically losing you turn is bad enough.  20's are an auto critical hit on attack rolls.

for all other rolls 1's and 20's are just regular rolls.  Add your modifier, and see if it is above or below the threshold you need to tie or beat.  Depending on your modifier, for some low DC tasks you can't fail, and for some very high DC tasks you may have no chance of success.

Communication of DC's
For tasks where you have good information about how hard something might be, I will represent this by giving you the DC.  For tasks where you have medium information, I will tell you if it looks very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard, or nearly impossible, which should give you an idea of the DC to within about 5.  I believe this scale only makes sense relative to a low level character with some combination of ability and proficiency in the task. Where you have little or no information, I will tell you your character has a hard time judging how difficult the task may be, with language like, "looks like it should be fairly simple," or "hard to judge, but it looks like it could be tricky."

Private Messaging
I have been wondering if it would be more fun or less fun to communicate something that only one character knows or notices via private message, and leave it up to the player if the character makes that thing known.  Or if it's better to just state it openly, and let people play their characters as if they didn't know.  I'm fine either way.

more to come...

I think I prefer private messaging information that is known to only one character... on that note I will need to check my PMs much more often.

One thing that I've done with Joe in our 1:1 game that I have liked (and submit only for consideration) is to suggest a course of action I would take if the DC didn't exceed a certain number, the idea being that my character should be able to get an approximate sense of how tough some things are before attempting them, like sneaking across a wooden floor. I do this proactively in the forum and then give a sense of what I would do if those conditions aren't met--It has helped to minimize the required back-and-forth, I think.

E.g. -- If I think I can cross the courtyard without being seen (i.e., I estimate it would be a DC 15 or greater perception check to spot me among the crowd), I cross the courtyard. Otherwise, I stay put until he makes his way into the house.