Hi there everyone and welcome aboard! These first two posts are going to have a lot of stuff to them, so I hope that's not too off-putting. Beyond that, this is any other OOC thread; use it to converse, discuss, table talk, post bongo cat memes (<em>please</em>post bongo cat memes) and whatever else you like.<br/><br/>So then!<br/><br/><div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Rules</strong></span></div><br/>First off, the rules of this endeavor...<br/><br/>• All the standard rules of playing on E apply, of course.<br/>• Respect each other's ons / offs. While this isn't planned to be a sexual RP, we're adults playing adult characters, adult stuff happens; be respectful towards each other when it does.<br/>• If a rules question comes up, please allow me to answer it.<br/>• Speaking of, always feel free to ask me something! It's what I'm doing this for, after all.<br/>• If you have to drop the game or take a hiatus, please say so! RL always comes first, but let us know so we can work with it.<br/>• Be excellent to each other... And,<em>PARTY ON, DUDES!</em>!<br/><br/><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">Gameplay</span></strong></div><br/>Being a system game, of course D&D has a set of rules. Thankfully, these rules are pretty approachable, at least when compared to prior editions of the game. Gone are the pages and pages of tables and charts and endless redundancies and contradictions. It's a pretty sleek system, as far as dice-based RPG's go.<br/><br/>This is how it works, at the most basic level:<br/><strong>1. The DM describes the environment and situation.</strong>I tell you guys what the scene is basically, what's going on around you, any foes you may be aware of, etc.<br/><strong>2. The players describe what they want to do.</strong>do you want to kick down a door? Investigate for footprints? Grab  beer and look for a good time? Describe it! Dice are then rolled to resolve the action, if the outcome is uncertain; some things are just trivial or taken as a given (a member of a noble house certainly recognizes their house's coat of arms), while some are just impossible for a character to achieve (A dwarf can't fly without magic, no matter how hard he flaps his arms)<br/><strong>3. The DM narrates the outcome of the adventurer's actions.</strong>"You strike a mighty blow against the beholder, and it recoils away from you, dripping green ichor. With  snarl and some words in a guttural tongue, it readies its many eyes to fire beams of magic at you!" And so forth.<br/><br/>It's the dice part of Step #2 that can get complicated at times. But, that's also pretty simple; to resolve most actions, the DM calls for you to roll a single twenty-sided die. You add to (or subtract from, sometimes) this roll a modifier based on your abilities and if applicable, proficiency. If your total is equal to or higher than the target number set by the DM, you succeed in your action, and if its lower, you fail.<br/><br/>•<strong>Advantage, Disadvantage, and Inspiration</strong>: Sometimes your character will have advantage on a D20 roll; you have the higher ground on a foe, or you are a noble trying to cow a pig farmer, or some similar situation; in this case, you roll<em>two</em>D20's, and take the one with the higher result. Disadvantage is the opposite, when you are getting the short end of a scenario, you may have to roll 2d20, and take the<em>lower</em>result.<br/><strong>Inspiration</strong>is a boon given to a player by the DM due to inspired roleplay, staying true to a character's persona even when disadvantageous, and generally whenever the DM feels its called for. A character can only have one inspiration at a time; they can spend it to cancel any disadvantage, or to give themselves advantage at any time; you can also spend your inspiration to cancel disadvantage / give advantage to another player!<br/><br/><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">Combat</span></strong></div><br/>For the most part, combat follows the same outline as any other scenario; the DM describes the scene, characters and NPCs react to it, DM describes again, so on and so forth. Combat actions are resolved using a D20 roll, same as noncombat actions, though with a few extra layers.<br/><br/>•<strong>Actions:</strong>Each character gets three actions during their combat turn; one standard action (attacking, using a skill, using movement), one move action (using movement; you can move on both a standard and move action in the same round) and, if you have something to use it for, a bonus action (some spells, class features, using a weapon in your second hand.) These can be used in any order you wish, and you do not have to use all of them if you don't want to.<br/><br/>•<strong>Initiative:</strong>Of course figuring out who acts when is important in combat. at the start of the first round of combat, the DM calls ofr an initiative roll; this is just a D20 roll, modified by your initiative bonus. Highest acts first, lowest acts last. (For PBP play, this takes a long time; I'll be using a more loose system; Actions will<em>happen</em>in initiative order, but I'm not goign to make everyone wait to<em>post</em>in initiative order!) If you want, you can set your initiative to happen after someone who got a lower result than you did.<br/><br/>•<strong>Attacking, Defending, and Damage:</strong>To attack a foe, you roll 1d20 and add a modifier; For melee attacks, this is either Strength or Dexterity (depending on your weapon) plus your Proficiency bonus, while for ranged attacks, you use your dexterity bonus and proficiency bonus.<strong>Defense</strong>is for the most part passive; your armor and shield (if any) give you a statistic called<em>Armor class</em>- this is the target number a foe must achieve to hit you.<br/>If you score a hit, you get to roll damage; the size and number of dice you use depends on what weapon you're hitting with. You add the moddifier you used on your attack roll to the result of these dice. (So if you used Dexterity to attack with a rapier, you add your dexterity bonus to the damage)<br/><br/>•<strong>Criticals:</strong>if you roll a 20 on the attack roll, before applying any modifiers, that is a critical hit; you get to double the dice you used for damage in this case (So if you're using htat rapier which normally uses 1d8 for damage, you would instead roll 2d8). (<strong>House Rule:</strong>If you have Disadvantage, roll a 20, and your lower die is still a hit, you still get to treat it as a critical hit)[/b]<br/><br/>I hope that's not too much to take in! if you have any questions, by all means, ask; I imagine some things will come up as we play, which is fine too. I just wanted ot make sure that there's some groundwork in.