Hey DM,

Just checking how you do skill checks, i.e. are they always actions unless stated otherwise, e.g. rogue's bonus-action hide/dash/disengage?

I should have asked at the start, since a lot of Vassa's actions will be verbal, intimidation, deception, persuasion, etc., so I want to be sure that I can only do 1 of those (plus a move and bonus).

Another example is the action I just tried to take, i.e. sneaking in to use a spell action. I can't actually sneak unless I use the hide action, correct?

Great question Vassa! I had to do some thinking, googling, and more thinking on this one. And, in the end, my wisdom can be summarized as such:

I don't have a blanket rule for all skill checks.

Marvel at the beauty of it! Ok, sorry. Feeling a bit silly. Moving on....

Skills that require you to physically do something (e.g. athletics, animal handling, performance, stealth, etc.) is typically an action. If your character gets multiples, it only takes one. Non-physical skills (e.g. acana, history, perception, etc.) will generally not require an action. Social skills, are somewhere in the middle. If you're yelling a curse in the middle of battle for an intimidation check, there's no need for that to be an action. But if you're trying to give a full speech in battle, that's different.

Does that make sense? Feel free to tell me I'm wrong. I enjoy arguing. :)

Makes sense to em lol

 😂 

Makes absolute sense, so while I keep that in mind about context when it comes to social skills, if you see me 'double dip' on actions, just give me a friendly kick under the table, lol. I do get a little carried away sometimes!

I like to ask questions for clarification purposes to help me 'immerse' myself, but you'll find no argument or rule lawyering here! I've dealth with too many of those players to ever want to be one. :D

As y'all can tell from my last post, I'm still playing with the formatting trying to decide how I want it to look. I think, for now, I like having the initiative in a spoiler box so it takes up less space.

Big thanks to those who are coloring their character's text. That helps.

For DM narration, I'm leaning toward the blockquote for now with actual words spoken in italics.

Formatting looks good. Do you want us to follow suit, i.e. include character text in textblocks or OOC stuff in spoiler boxes?

LOVED Durnan's response, btw. Thoroughly enjoying the game so far! Great job!!!

Are we waiting on Tiermat's damage roll or is it the troll's turn? I can literally smell the XP... :p

*Sorry, don't mean to seem impatient, just super keen to finish this battle and get into the rp/story stuff.

Sorry Vassa, I was waiting on Tiermat's damage roll before I started the troll's turn. I went ahead and rolled for him to keep things moving.

Reminder: Please roll damage with your attacks so that if they hit we can keep things moving.

Thanks, WebGambit. No need to apologise.

DM Question: How would I go about checking what Vassa knows regarding stories and knowledge that he's picked up as a bard, i.e. the old 3.5e bardic knowledge that doesn't exist in 5e? I don't want to step into meta territory, but figure that Vassa might have picked up bits of knowledge about many things. For example, when we encounter a beast like a troll, should I just PM you to ask if Vassa's heard of said creatures and, if so, what he knows? Or should I ask [OOC]  to roll a nature,  arcana, history, religion or intelligence check (depending on the situation) in game thread?

A check like that is perfect for a dice roll. You can either message me directly or ask in the game thread, depending on if you want your fellow adventurers to know.

Kestrell my friend, you cannot know how happy it made me that you used my very 1st bardic inspiration given to NOT fall off that table, lol.

Haha!  I saw that roll and figured it would be the perfect time to use it.  Thanks!

What does Yagra the female half-orc do?  I can't take the suspense!

Quote from KestrellKestrell >>

What does Yagra the female half-orc do?  I can't take the suspense!

 Agreed lol

Sorry folks. Totally forgot Yagra was mine. I am I shamed.

Forgiven... you have like a 3 month period to make mistakes, then we start charging Inspiration! lmao :P Tbh, I think you're doing a good job for your first time DMing on a PbP on here. If you can take the slowness of the game with a grain of salt then the game is your oyster. It's a lot slower than IRL, especially with a  large group, but once the RP starts going strong it will fly by. :) 

Quote from TheGmoat >>

Forgiven... you have like a 3 month period to make mistakes, then we start charging Inspiration! lmao :P Tbh, I think you're doing a good job for your first time DMing on a PbP on here. If you can take the slowness of the game with a grain of salt then the game is your oyster. It's a lot slower than IRL, especially with a  large group, but once the RP starts going strong it will fly by. :) 

 100% agreed, Gmoat. I think Gambit's doing a great job! While I'm very new to this format myself, there are obviously quite a few things particular to PbP DMing that you don't get in most IRL games, e.g. different threads to monitor and respond to, players in different time zones, formatting concerns, being limited in your engagement methods/tools, e.g. no physical gestures (body language) to help communication or RP, no minis, table maps and props to spice things up, etc. All-in-all, I reckon this game is going smashingly and as you say, once we all get the hang of the format and our character's party dynamics emerge... Waterdeep won't know what hit her! :D

Bah! Oh how quickly those 2 1st level spells are depleted. :(

ikr! I play a lot of spell casters and people always say that I should start using my spell slots but I like to save them... I don't know why maybe I'm just weird at the end of most in-game days I have at least 1 spell slot left