COMBAT SEQUENCE
1. Determine Surprise. Whenever there is a need to check for surprise, I will roll for each side (PCs and enemies) to determine who might be surprised.

2. Determine Initiative. To speed up play in the PbP format, we will use Side Initiative as detailed in the DMG p. 270. I will roll unmodified d20s for both sides and posts results. Once initiative is established. Players may post their actions at any time when it is the PCs turn to act. There is no need to wait for other players to post, unless there is a tactical reason for doing so (e.g., wanting to wait for the magic user to cast a sleep spell before engaging enemies, etc.).

3. Combat Resolution. At the beginning of a potential combat situation, I will post a combat tracker listing all the relevant stats players need to resolve their own attacks (e.g., hit points and armor class). The players will roll their own attacks and damage and post results during the turn. This format ensures players are not waiting around to determine whether they hit or not and greatly speeds up play.

Note: There may be instances where I keep hit points hidden from players, but this will be the exception and generally only used for "boss" type monsters. In these instances, players will still be able to determine whether they hit or not, just not whether they do enough damage to defeat a foe. For example, if you attack a monster that only has 6 hit points remaining and inflict 8 points of damage during your attack, you can assume the monster is dead and narratively describe how your character defeats the monster when you post.

4. End of Round Wrap-Up. After the last side of a given turn has taken their actions, I will update the combat tracker and the new round will begin.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:47, Wed 28 June 2017.