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DreamOfTheRood
2007-05-05, 12:32 AM
This is the first time I've ever DM'ed a game, and I'm doing it through email to keep things better organized. It's much slower, but I'm not known for thinking quick on my feet anyway. I'm really iffy on how to run combat, so I've come to you for guidance.
My friend's character name is Amir Castille. The setup is such that there are enemy soldiers on the roof of the train car. There are two gentlemen in the train car with him, and they were seeding the city with seditionist propaganda from the train car's opening. Seeing this, the conductor stopped the train, and soldiers are now on the roof, getting ready to swing down. The soldiers are undead, which is an important plot point in the story. DM parts are in bold.


Amir: "It is better to have some allies when you have no choice to fight! I guess we have no choice but to defend ourselves!" I use quick draw feat and two weapon fighting. Also improve initiave+4 feat. I draw both bastard swords. I try to stand beside the door where they will come through to get a suprise attack! "tell me now if we are not together! I dont like whats going on with our government anymore than you do!"

A rope descends from the train car's roof, and a leather-armored soldier slides down it, nimbly landing inside the train car. Roll initiative. Initiative rolls are decided by each player rolling 1d20 and the DM rolling 1d20 for each participatory NPC.

Amir Castille: ok i got a feat "improve initiative +4" i rolled a 14 +4 = 18. If i won that i want to attack him!

Decide which weapon(s) you want to use, and then roll 1d20 plus that weapon's attack bonus to determine whether you hit.

Amir Castille: I got two bastard swords. a silver one and a +2 one. first roll a 10 +5 = 15, second roll 17+3=20. I got two weapon fighting feat.

Roll for damage on the first. Roll for damage on the second and add 2.

Amir Castille: first roll is 8, second roll5+2=7. this is getting good now!!! I love it! Off with there heads!!!!

You strike the soldier in his chest twice, viciously opening his leather breastplate to the outside world. He appears unconcerned with his wounds and advances, not yet having seen the two other men in the car. The man with the pistol takes aim at the soldier's back and fires. (This is an attack of opportunity. Due to the Dexterity bonus of the Train Car NPCs, each of them gets two extra attacks of opportunity on an open target, giving them a total of three attacks per round.) It's a bad shot on a moving target, and the bullet barely grazes the soldier's shoulder (1d10 piercing damage, -1 damage to NPC Soldier). The soldier lurches towards you, one arm raised defensively while the other is ready to bring down it's bludgeoning club. The man with the pistol fires again. (His second attack of opportunity.) Again, the shot is poor. (1d10 piercing damage, -1 damage to NPC Soldier). Grunting with frustration and adrenaline, he pounds the back of the soldier's head with the pistol (1d6 bludgeoning damage, -3 damage to NPC Soldier).

The soldier, now barely standing, lurches toward you, a halfhearted strike with it's shillelagh. (You have an armor class of 19, meaning that the NPC Soldier would have to roll 19 or higher to strike you. The NPC Soldier rolls 16.) It's strike is close but off target, and the thin man behind it strikes out with his own club. (1d6+2 bludgeoning damage, 6 damage). The soldier falls, it's head caved in on one side, making a meaty smack against the floor. The man bends over and strikes it again. (First attack of opportunity, 1d6+2 bludgeoning damage, -4 damage; second attack of opportunity, 1d6+2 bludgeoning damage, -3 damage). The soldier, now oozing and stinking the train car with rot and effluvia twitches twice and is still.

"If we can kill 'em and keep their bodies in the car, then the conductor will think we've been dealt with, and he'll start the train again."

Two more ropes fall from the roof of the train car, and two soldiers swing wildly into the opening. Roll for initiative.

Inyssius Tor
2007-05-05, 01:44 AM
There are a few areas that could use a little work; this is what happened, right?
1: Your friend attacks the enemy.
2: The enemy moves toward your friend, provoking two AoOs from one NPC. He then attacks your friend once and misses.
3: The other NPC goes next in the initiative order; he attacks the enemy and drops him. As the enemy falls to the ground unconscious, he provokes two AoO's from this NPC.

You've gotta brush up on your Attacks of Opportunity (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/attacksOfOpportunity.htm) rules.
1: in standard medieval-era D&D, ranged weapons don't work with attacks of opportunity. If you let characters execute pistol-whips, the soldier would have had to be right next to the NPC's to provoke AoO's from them.
2: each character only gets one AoO from each act an enemy performs. "Moving out of a threatened square" only counts as one provoking act, no matter how many squares the enemy actually moves.
3: characters don't provoke AoO's from falling to the ground unconscious; your NPC could, however, have made a trip attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#trip) against the enemy; he wouldn't have done any damage, but if he had the Improved Trip feat, he could have made an immediate extra attack against the guy he tripped.

I don't quite understand the "tactical map" of your fight: your friend could attack the foe with his swords (implying that they were right next to each other), but his foe had to move closer in order to attack? Your NPC, though, didn't have to move to attack the enemy?

A few things you might want to look closer at, but that you may have already considered:
1: Amir C. needs the feat Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword, or he has to treat his swords as two-handed weapons. That would make it pretty hard to use them both without four hands.
2: Even with EWP:BS and TWF (two-weapon fighting) he's still going to take -4 on both attack rolls (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#twoWeaponFighting).
3: The +2 on that magic sword is added to both attack rolls and damage.

All of that said, though, you did quite well. Great plot and fluff; I really don't want to over-criticize or chase you away or anything.

DreamOfTheRood
2007-05-05, 02:59 AM
That's what I gathered from a cross-post on another forum. Everything was taking place within about a five by five foot area, so I saw no reason to deal with squares. Train cars are traditionally not wide open spaces, so I'm going easy on the whole deal with spaces and squares and whatnot.

Thanks for the input.

Quietus
2007-05-05, 05:08 AM
It's also worth noting that anyone making a ranged attack (i.e. firing a pistol) when next to (aka threatened by) someone capable of making melee attacks, they draw attacks of opportunity as well.

Could've sworn there was rules somewhere for fighting in cramped quarters, too...

I_Got_This_Name
2007-05-05, 02:55 PM
Initiative is 1d20+Dexterity Modifier. The Improved Initiative feat adds +4 to that.

Generally, everyone rolls initiative, then the highest-initiative character (PC or NPC) decides what to do, and so on, instead of rolling initiative and declaring "if I go first, I want to do this."

Seconding what everyone else said about the swords.

Are you sure about starting at this level? If he's got a +2 Bastard Sword, you've either been handing out too much loot, or the game's starting higher than first level. I'd advise first-time DMs to start with a simple, 1st-level game.

Also, seconding what everyone else said.

PMDM
2007-05-05, 05:09 PM
Here's a little tactics for you, since everyone else covered all of your battle problems. They're on a 5x5 train car, right? Use the bull rush move to knock the PC off the car.

Oh yeah, unless you took the feat (I think it's called combat reflexes), you only get one AoO until your next turn.