At the bridge, two bench-sleeping indigent old men grunted as Cecily's taunts woke them; looking befuddled and then intimated, they began to shuffle away.<br/><br/>~~<br/><br/>After knocking, Toria took a step back, seeming to take comfort in peeking around Randal's tall armored frame.<br/><br/>"Oh -<em>ahhh</em>, of<em>course</em>," the voice suddenly shifted tone, to one of sarcastic deference, even accompanied by the applauding sound of a single pair of clapping hands.  "That's<em>entirely</em>different then. As you have the sound of adventurers - heroes even - you must carry weapons aplenty on your persons, aye?"<br/><br/>A metallic clattering sound, like a handful of silverware falling to the floor, echoed from through the door. A moment later, three of the second-story windows overlooking the front steps and its flanking statuary swung open. Three sharp-featured halflings poked their faces and hands through, spinning loaded slings about and grinning down at the human adventurers with covetous malice.<br/><br/>The voice behind the door laughed, "Heavy,<em>expensive</em>bigfolk weapons and armor. Aye."<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>-Halflings' group initiative: 12<br/>-Please roll initiative (or let me do so for you)<br/>-Go ahead and act if you roll initiative 13+<br/>-Some things can be done anyway (most notably talking; a free and out-of-turn action)<br/>-You need not act in your exact initiative order: I'll be doing group initiative for NPCs; this speeds up PBP by allowing everyone else to post in any order every round (which you can already do under core rules, by using delay actions in a way that leapfrogs other PCs but not the NPC group initiative). Allowing any-order posting is a significant speed-up for PBP.<br/>-Ifwhen you do have tactics where the order of the PC turn matters, I suggest either coordinating via PC talking, OOC notes, or indications in your post that make the intended or favorable order obvious - for example, A casting haste before B attacks rather than vice versa, so B gets the bonuses of it. For example, Toria can cast Haste as a free action (cool!), so if I have to pilot her during battles, this will likely be a common thing.<br/>-In some cases you may be able to post all your round's worth of actions at once, in some cases you may want to know the results of part of your turn before choosing the rest. In such cases you can either specify actions conditionally (if A then B else C, however you wish to say it, IC or OOC or both) or post part of your turn and wait for DM feedback (possibly cueing such to make sure I note that you haven't used your entire turn.)<br/>-Opening/closing doors and windows are move actions (the halflings effectively consumed their surprise round actions opening the 2nd story windows.)<br/>-Your PC's starting position is up to you (going forward you may want to decide on a default formation aka 'marching order')<br/><br/><br/>Grid:<br/>downward on the map is roughly East<br/>X = wall )or other usually-impassible squares)<br/>- = door<br/>. = open squares<br/>H = window halflings - in this case it's a necessarily symbolic positioning on the 2D map; they are actually 15' (3 squares) above the front wall of the house, looking out 2nd story windows, not a square behind (West) of it. The voice behind the main doors<br/><br/>From what the PCs have seen, the house is roughly 70' square, two stories, w/o 1st floor doors on the two side walls<br/><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;"><br/>  . X<br/>1w. X     H     H       H     X .<br/>0 . X X X X X X - - X X X X X X .<br/>1e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .            <br/>  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br/>  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br/>4e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br/>    6s        1s0 1n          7n</span>