I got asked to join the room, and give a name (prefilled with Mage), and now says:

Looks like I have the situation in hand ;)

Go lay some divine smackdown on the spider Glin and Kojik are fighting.

Kovann's first attack killed Spider #3, so I'll apply his second attack to Spider #4.

I weren't sure if it would or not, so I assumed not rather than so.

I'll quickly edit.

All good! Part of the on-going process of managing PbP combat.

I guess I could start including HP totals, too.

I don't want to give up tension in exchange for momentum.

What do you guys think?

If it would end up where someone kills/defeats an enemy, it would be apparent and those lower on initiative would move onto another target.

Open information for me is good, especially with PbP combat, as it keeps things flowing faster, and we would eventually be able to work things out anyway.

Maybe instead of goody guys/ bad guys separation change it to top 1/2 bottom 1/2 in initiative order. This way slow movers have a better clue as to what's going on by the time they act.

just 2 cents...I'm fine with whatever is chosen.

plus Danryn would continue to attack. I don't generally heal during combat or if people still have hit dice to use. Unless of course it's critical and no short rest is possible. Spell conservation is mighty important.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:02, Wed 30 Aug 2023.

The point of doing it by sides is so that there's no need to worry about what order things happen. All the spiders go. Then you go. And we can assume that everything the part does happens roughly in the order you post.

Next time I won't post the initiative order. I think that might have confused things.

Sorry to all of you..it seems I missed an entire round there in the confusion. My bad. I'll be more careful moving forward.

All good. It happens. I could have nudged you, but I had the time to move us forward and took it.

So, for next combat, we'll do it the same way as this time.

1. Everyone rolls for individual initiative (generally I'll roll for everyone, unless it's clear combat is about it happen).
2. Whichever side rolls the highest number (good guys or bad guys), that side goes first.
3. For the first round only, anyone on the winning side can attack with Advantage against anyone with a lower initiative than themselves (and/or force a Save at Disadvantage, whichever makes sense). This is just to maintain the benefit of high initiative.
4. Within a given side, post in any order, and assume all actions happen in the order they are posted.

I think that'll give us the most sensible flow of activity without needing people to post in order.

Does that make sense?

The poison lasts one hour. So I think unless it's treated, you would have to make the Nature/Survival, etc checks at Disadvantage.

Or... not to complicate things... but if you wanted to make just one single roll, I'd allow that one to go ahead normally. To simulate basically resting for an hour, then having an hour to help look.

Or you could "Help" with no negative impact.

(all of this assuming you're staying to investigate, if you're all heading out then you're fine, since your movement is unaffected)

In reply to System (msg # 295):

sounds good to me.

I'm in favor of a short rest.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:09, Wed 30 Aug 2023.

I was going to ask, are we stopping for a rest (recharging ki for me, and heal rolls would likely go down well), but Danryn beat me to it.

You can take a Short Rest while investigating the area. That's no problem.

I wasn't clear about the roles: the first three are "nested" rolls. Just make one Nature and/or Animal Handling, and you can know everything up to the highest number you roll.

And then there's just one Survival/Investigation.

Everyone, I have a very busy and exhausting period coming up at work, from now until the end of September. I'm enjoying the forward motion we've got going on now, and I don't want to lose it, so I'll do my best to keep it up.

And I'll try to keep you all in the loop as to how I'm doing and what the update schedule looks like.

Appreciate you being upfront with this System, much appreciated :)

Thank you. My next week is insane as well.

Okay: two hours have been spent having a Short Rest and investigating the area. It's been noted that this was seemingly once frequented by humanoids with horses (same kinds of tracks you've been seeing along the riverbank so far). And seemingly the spiders moved in recently, and then the humanoids stopped coming.

You've also found three entrances to (presumably) the spiders' burrow. And they've dragged several large, heavy somethings into their burrow at various points.

Glinsael thinks it's possible/likely there's a female in the burrow nursing an egg sac.

Questions:
1. Are we going in the burrow?
2. Which entrance?
3. In what order?

And I know I mentioned this, but I don't know if it got lost in the shuffle, but the Duke is expecting a caravan is on the way to the Keep, arriving any day now, and the caravan contains, among other things, food for the Keep for the winter and Danryn's father figure.

Let me know what's next!

so just for information sake. The little sub-text I post indicating my spells and hit point and..well whatever requires remembering is saved in my scratch pad. This was it's always handy and in case of long period of role play I don't need to type it out or go back and copy past it over and over.

I've been doing this for a very long time and I hope no one finds it too cumbersome when I do post it.

I think it's fine. I'm in favour of whatever anyone needs to do to make things easier.

In reply to Danryn Storanson (msg # 304):

That's a great idea!

I'm going to be unavailable from tomorrow morning until Sunday evening, as I'll be camping & LARPing, with minimal phone signal or power.

Survive without me ;)

I'm back folks :)

Looks like you all survived, though sadly the same can't be said about the caravan :(

I'm trying to get a mental picture of the area. Are the rocky outcroppings large enough to use for hiding behind? or is it more like rocky ground? Does this count as difficult terrain? Is this why we can't get a clearer view of the caravan from our position?

Also, welcome back, Kovann! I hope you had a good time.

Physical description of landscape is not one of my strengths. Let me see:

You're currently at the river's edge, at the bottom of a slope. The hill up to the road is wide and even, but still an elevation. The plume of smoke is also a bit to the west. So you can't see the area well.

No real difficult terrain anywhere. Especially once you're on the Road.

I'll get the next post up soon as possible.