Out Of Character

[waysoftheearth]

Happy birthday, mgtremaine!

Ding! Happy level up

To celebrate Wen's birthday, everyone gets 100 XP

[mushgnome]

Awesome! Change Highbough's action to Hold Person if it's not too late.

Happy Birthday fellow Gemini!

[sully]

Hmm, I think I may have screwed up; Dorgan should probably have hit with a throw of 13. My head must have been in "normal combat" mode where he would need a 14 to hit AC6. My apologies Sully, I will review that when I get back to my notes after work tonight.

Dorgan won't have slain the werewolf even with a hit, however. But he might give it something to think about.

Good. That werewolf is a little too mouthy for Dorgan's tastes...

[waysoftheearth]

Dorgan's not going anywhere without Gustave so he continues to fight the werewolf in front of him.

For all Dorgan knows, Gustave could be safely over the wall already

[mgtremaine]

Thanks all ... stuffed myself with pasta, coffee and tiramisu.

[waysoftheearth]

Hmm, I think I may have screwed up; Dorgan should probably have hit with a throw of 13. My head must have been in "normal combat" mode where he would need a 14 to hit AC6. My apologies Sully, I will review that when I get back to my notes after work tonight.

I've been thinking on this tonight...

Historically, I've only ever used the first row of the Attack Matrix throughout this campaign. Only since we recently switched to the DD rules and have some 4th level fighters do I need to think about the next few rows of the attack matrix (even the ogres and giants and whatnot of the past only used the first row--but did more damage on a hit).

Since we've changed to the DD rules Dorgan (a 4th level fighter) should now hit Werewolves (AC6) on a roll of 11+ and then deal 1-6 points of damage.

I had to think hard about the implications of this, but I've decided I'm going to stick to using just the first row--at least for the remainder of the current encounter.

The reason is that is that it makes running a PBP so much easier if I don't need to constantly look up the attack matrix for every PC and monster. If everyone simply uses the first line then I can do it all in my head. It's effectively the target20 method: if d20+targetAC >= 20 it's a hit.

But there are downsides too.

The first downside is that the fighters loose their attack matrix "edge", but then again the monsters loose an even bigger edge and that is a significant boon to player survival.

The second downside is that there will only ever be a fixed 15% chance of hitting AC 2. Hits will be rarer than misses. (and this is a common complaint about D&D combat in general)
This issue is "supposedly" mitigated by a house rule (hacked in from Empire of the Petal Throne) which says that damage caused scales according to HD. With a normal-sized sword or axe a 4 HD hero would deal two damage dice on a hit. So while Dorgan is only 35% likely to hit an AC 6 werewolf (instead of 55% likely by the book), he'll do 2-12 damage (instead of 1-6 by the book). Overall Dorgan is advantaged by the house rule--although it may not seem so after three misses in a row!


FWIW--prior to the recent switch to the DD rules we were playing a similar house rule with multiple attacks instead of multiple damage dice. Statistically these are equivalent in the long run, so in theory the game hasn't really changed. In theory. We'll see how it runs for a while more...

[sully]

Well, I'm always in favor of anything that makes the DM's life easier.

Are you retconning the last round so I can see how close I am to killing that werewolf? Dorgan's probably going to stick around at least one more round, while others are still on the wall.

Does the Shields Shall Be Splintered rule come into effect if a player misses their save vs Disintegration?

[doctorx]

Happy birthday, mgtremaine! Josiane hopes to make you a gift of cooling werewolf...

[Olroda]

Happy birthday!

[waysoftheearth]

Are you retconning the last round so I can see how close I am to killing that werewolf?

I'm leaving last turn as it was.
Dorgan would need, on average, two hits to slay a werewolf unassisted. As it is, his opponent has taken a hit from one of Ulric's magic missiles. Werewolves are 4 HD. It is endured one 2-7 hit point hit.

Does the Shields Shall Be Splintered rule come into effect if a player misses their save vs Disintegration?

Yes. This has already happened to Olaf when we first saw the Tar Fiend in action.