Announcements, House Rules, and etc.
House Rules: (more as I think of them, comments welcome)
1) Initiative: Initiative will be rolled once at the beginning of a combat and the same order used for the entire fight. I am toying with the idea of rolling initiative for everyone and posting it at the start of combat. We'll see how that goes. So yes, initiative increasing feats/traits/abilities are worth investing in.
1b) Combat Order: I will try to arrange things so all adversaries go at the same initiative. With multiple groups of bad guys, this will probably mean averaging bad guy initiative somehow. Combat will then proceed as A) High initiative players post actions (in any order) B) I update, resolve conflicts (eg. two people move to same grid square) and post round 1 bad guy actions C) EVERYONE posts actions - low initiative players for round 1, high initiative for round 2. Repeat B and C until you are all dead combat is done. I will typically roll reactions, attacks of opportunity, etc. for you, but if you expect something like that to happen, I'm happy for you to post contingencies in your post (eg. I rolled for my attack of opportunity if the goblin flees, hits AC 15 for 8 damage)
2) Posting rates: I'm shooting for a post every 1-2 days and I hope you can all commit to the same. If you can't, this may not be the game for you.
3) Posting etiquette: Everyone posts at a different rate at different times. I ask that no one post more than 2 in character posts in a thread until everyone present in that thread have a chance to post at least once. Let's not let two people run away with a scene with 38 posts in a day. I'll pledge to abide by this as well, EXCEPT that I plan on posting a GM update once every day or two, whether everyone has had a chance to post or not.
4) Absence in combat order: Stealing this from a wise GM I played with in the past. If someone misses their chance to post on this schedule they'll be given a chance to take two turns the next round. If they miss more than I round I may NPC them. I'm probably less shy about NPCing your characters than most GMs, If you are not OK with that, this may not be the game for you. It will still only be after about five days of un-announced absence. If you plan on not posting for 5 days or more and know you are in a situation where the plot could be held up by your inaction, please let us know!
5) Dice: I will roll dice for you as needed for things like perception checks, saving throws, attacks of opportunity, and anything else that will speed up play. If you have abilities that manifest often during opponents action, I'll ask you to provide me with a blanket instruction set on how you'd typically use them. For example, if you are a dual-cursed oracle with the misfortune ability that allows you to take an immediate action to make an opponent re-roll, you might want to tell me to use it whenever an opponent crits.
more as I think of them
