Speaking only for myself, but I would consider it very weird if we never had downtime.
People will want to hire henchman and mercenaries, recover from mortal wounds, engage in trade, and at higher levels minister to congregations, perform spell research, build magic items, and so on.
No, I understand hand waving time. I meant, if an adventure takes longer in real time to resolve, I wondered if it would be frustrating waiting for your downtime to finally arrive in the first place. But I don’t know, if I’m borrowing trouble I retract it. I really am in favor of downtime activities, I like that aspect of play.
Bobloblah, I’m assuming you would like control over the threads that get added here. If not, I can go ahead and do it. I would like to propose that we add a thread called something along the lines of “Standard Operating Procedures”. We can use that to keep track of active players and any standard practices we want to incorporate. I find the following are useful to establish in advance:
1)Marching orders (both overland and dungeon); include who is carrying light sources.
2)Watch orders. I’m not sure how you want to run it, but I think the typical assumption (in B/X, at least) is that spellcasters should have first/last watches to regain spells. Also, do we camp with fire or without.
3)What do do at closed doors. I’m typically in favor of something like: “thief moves forward to listen and check for traps. If nothing is heard or seen, the adventurers line up with a crossbowmen facing the door, fighters pressed against the wall on either side and a spellcaster prepared to cast over the bowman’s shoulder. One of the fighters against the wall thrusts the door open.” Or something to that effect.
I further propose that, if the SOP thread is approved, we limit discussion to OOC, only transferring decisions to the SOP thread once a majority opinion is reached.
How does the above sound?
Oh! regarding marching order, are adventurers with reach weapons (spears and polearms) able to attack from the second rank?
Quoting the above just as an example. Not sure what I’m doing wrong – and watch it not work now – but when I use the quote button I get the formatting text, as above, but it doesn’t translate back into the kind of quote balloon I’m used to on other forums. Is there a better way to quote?
Quoting the above just as an example. Not sure what I’m doing wrong – and watch it not work now – but when I use the quote button I get the formatting text, as above, but it doesn’t translate back into the kind of quote balloon I’m used to on other forums. Is there a better way to quote?
-thirdkingdom
So…it’s a bit of a mess still in the text box, BUT, as long as one is using the Filtered HTML text format (which should be default for everyone now) we’ll get this style of quoting for new quotes going forward.
Quoting the above just as an example. Not sure what I’m doing wrong – and watch it not work now – but when I use the quote button I get the formatting text, as above, but it doesn’t translate back into the kind of quote balloon I’m used to on other forums. Is there a better way to quote?
-thirdkingdom
So…it’s a bit of a mess still in the text box, BUT, as long as one is using the Filtered HTML text format (which should be default for everyone now) we’ll get this style of quoting for new quotes going forward.
Alright, I’m going to go ahead and propose a marching order. I’m assuming the following:
1)We can fit 2 wide in a ten foot wide corridor
2)Spears and pole arms can attack from the second rank (confirmed by Judge)
3)Spellcasters can cast spells with one hand (allowing them to hold a light source in the other hand.
Feel free to offer alternatives to the below marching order. Asterisk represents light source
The front line was largely determined by AC, and the ability to spam Turns if needed. Putting Kerrick in the rear allows us to turn any undead coming from behind. I’m not sure if a magic-user in the second rank has line of sight in melee or not (to cast spells). If not, it might make more sense to move Kerrick to the second rank, putting Gwydion and Kaul in the third rank with Masov bringing up the rear.
I have no specific objection to acting as rear guard in case we get attacked from behind (although admittedly I’m used to giving that job to clerics, our clerics have the best ACs), but it feels like I should mention that paladins can’t turn undead.
My expectation, being first level, is that we’d want to rotate front line, second line, and rear guard duties as HP declines anyway; we have limited ability to recover from injuries.
I still hope to start with a spear carrier, which would add a second rank combatat. In any event Hengist can carry a torch if he throws it down in melee. I’d more or less expected to be first rank as a fighter but can handle second rank and rotate in, or start first and rotate back when wounded.
Again, I assumed that the ability to cast at opponents in melee (especially if the enchanter gets Sleep) outweighs the benefits of having another spear in the second rank. However! Once melee is joined and any spells are cast we can always rotate Kerrick and Gywdion, to bring that extra spear to bear.