Questions!

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are we using back round stories

You may write whatever background story you like for your character. I would encourage it. Usual limitations on evil characters.

So I'm really new to roll20 and...the macros thing I don't quite follow. I mean I do, the creating/design of them at least it's just...where, exactly, are you supposed to go? Like "Join Game" and then create macros or is it somewhere else?

Krys, hit join game. I will explain it to you once you're in there :-D

Short version: yes, you go to "join game" look for your character in the journal tab on the right, click on it, and add the macros in the abilities and attributes tab as per instructions in the rules forum post. I'll be in game so you can chat with me if you need help.

What macros should be set up? From what R20 says through all there documentation its just a way to easily do things, not exactly required

See the rules post in the other thread. You should have macros set up for each of your at-will, encounter, and daily powers that requires a roll, including basic melee attacks, if your character will be a front-liner (e.g. something where you have to roll for attack, then damage you need one. Something like "elven accuracy," where the only power is that you can now re-roll a miss, would not require one, as you could just say you're using it over voice chat and re-roll the same macro). You do not need to create macros for skill checks (acrobatics, athletics, etc. etc.) as these bonuses are relatively straightforward. It is not R20 saying that they are required; I am. As I say in the rules post, if you have a whole bunch of newbies who are unfamiliar with both the game mechanics of D+D and the coding for R20, what should be relatively quick, 5 round battles can take several hours as people continually have to look up proficiency bonuses, modifiers, and what their expertise bonus does. Heaven forbid there is someone prone or there is combat advantage or flanking involved, each attack can take upwards of 3-4 minutes, which really ruins the flow and the feel of the game for everyone. Once you get into effects that target multiple people or have area effects (create rough terrain, pull an opponent, etc.), this time can stretch even longer (seriously, look at some of the druid and warden attacks). With macros, each attack shouldn't take more than 20-30 seconds, and all the effects are pre-listed out without issue. This one-time investment of effort speeds up the game for everyone involved (including the DMs and the 5 other players) from here on out. Admittedly, I have an ulterior motive with this, as I hope that by typing out attack and damage rolls and writing down all your effects, you guys will get more familiar with the powers that you have from the get-go and that will afford you an opportunity to ask questions about them! I hope that clarifies things for you. Feel free to follow up with me here!

are we playing today because if so i cant.

That's fine. Look under the "Upcoming sessions" topic for info. Pretty much today will likely be a day for helping people get set up with their tokens and macros and the like. First real game will not take place until tentatively Monday?

Alright I admit it I don't understand what a Marco is

Can someone help me

A macro (not a marco) is a short little bit of pre-written code that will do one or several die rolls in-game and say some pre-written text just by the touch of a button. You are pretty much just prepping to say "ok, I'm going to need to roll 1d20+8 a lot for attack rolls, and then maybe a 1d8+4 for damage rolls and there's also another effect to that attack, so I'm going to write it ahead of time so I don't have to type it out every time I want to attack and hold everyone up." If you read the post in the rules thread, I think I explain them pretty thoroughly, and failing that, there is a link in there to the r20 wiki which explains them slightly differently too. If you haven't done so yet, please read through those carefully.

I'm new to roll20 i can create a char in like 10 mins but i don't have a clue about the macros could someone help

Scott: read what I posted (and read the link to the r20 wiki) in the basic rules post, and if you still need help/clarification, I will be in-game for a while so we can chat and you can ask questions if you hit the "join game" button on the campaign page.

Okay, so I've been browsing as I'm going to create an alt and I noticed that a lot of races have racial encounter powers. Do these count towards your Encounter power or does the Class you have grant you a class-only Encounter in addition to the racial power?

Any racial encounter powers you get are a bonus that does not count toward your "encounter power quota." You get that racial encounter for free and then you can still pick a level 1 class-specific encounter power as well.

Okay that is actually rather cool.

Is there a location as to where we can make character sheets. Where we choose specific stats or whatever to work with limitations or whathaveyou?

Did you read the Basic rules thread? I would like the sheets to be made on myth-weavers.com (accounts are free). Be sure to use a D+D 4e sheet.

Eurgh, sorry! Missed that part like a complete dope. Making it now.

Question for character creation. Just joined, and am new to the site + online tabletopping, but not the game. I always really liked the concept behind the soulknife (aka the psychic wolverine), but in 3.5 he was awful, and he doesn't exist in 4e. Was hoping to play an existing class (the Monk, using Iron Soul), but adding a "skin" so to speak to provide this flavor. Monks already have unarmed strikes that are basically longswords, so even that doesn't need changing. The only change I would likely need is to allow my unarmed strike (the arm blades) to be used as my ki focus, associating it with the proper feats, etc. Doesn't really make sense for someone who can make psychic blades to use another weapon or object as a focus. I would be able to create them as a minor action, and dispel them as a free, as per standard. Also, I do have a pretty good backstory to go alongside this guy, so maybe that counts for something :) Thanks for your consideration! ~Aaron S.

Aaron, I am going to tentatively say no, because allowing you to use your empty arm as a ki focus would essentially give you a free third arm for it, since you could for instance have one arm with a weapon, one with a focus, and one that can do unarmed strike, if I am understanding it correctly. If you'd still like to RP it as psychic blades, I have no issue with that, but again, I think having an arm-focus is stretching the rules a tad.

What races / classes is the guild still short on? I was planning a Dragonborn Bard, but after reading the last few recaps looks like we have musicians aplenty!

Haha both of those bards are the same person, actually. Races are not super important, but we could probably use a couple more leaders and/or defender-types.

Haha, no, not asking for use of a third arm :) I only asked for the arm-focus because Iron Soul monks, which fit the flavor of the character a bit more, require weapon focuses for a lot of powers, feats, etc. I thought since he has the psychic blades (was going to rp them as a sort of innate, discovered talent that led him to the monastery in the first place), it wouldn't make sense to say that his ki focus is a regular dagger. You could make a rule that says he can only use the blades as a focus if they are out, and he can't effectively use another weapon if the blades are being used. He could extend only one blade, but cannot be wielding a weapon in the other hand if he wants to use his focus. He could- -----------Have to head off to work, and don't have time to finish this. Will be either updating at first chance, or clarifying in a response----------

All right, sorry, just got back from work. Anyways, I'm basically going to summarize what I'm asking in a list, since I'm having trouble explaining it. Sorry about the jumbled mess above, was barely conscious before work today. The list will be in order of least to greatest change to rules as written (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong). 1. Be able to create the blades as a minor action, and dispel as a free. They have the same stats as a monk unarmed strike, but count as a light blade, not an unarmed attack. Each arm can have a blade, and if so, the arm used as "off hand" uses dagger damage instead of unarmed, with normal two-weapon fighting penalties. If I am holding an object, that arm cannot have a blade, and I need to dispel the blade before picking up an object. 2. Iron Soul Monks use weapons for their ki focuses and other class abilities. My arm blades count as my ki focus, but I must have "active" at least one to use it as such. Also, if a monk power specifies a weapon type- e.g. Stinging Nettles (Psionic Power, 62), then my arm blades are considered a light blade. 3. If I obtain a magic weapon in the light blade or ki focus category, by spending 10 minutes of meditation and focus, I can transfer that item's abilities to my blades. If I make two blades, only one of them gets the bonus. I can only have one item at a time absorbed this way, and the previous item becomes a mundane version of that weapon. If I absorb another, that specific previous weapon regains its properties- so if I was stupid and used the awesome magic dagger that I absorbed as a toothpick because it was regular and broke it, well then tough luck, now I have a broken magic dagger, and can't resell it or anything. The item has to be on or near my person in order to retain the effects- if it is not, then the connection breaks, the weapon is magic again, but my blades are not. The purpose of this is so that I can still find and use magic weapons, but also retain the flavor of my character. I hope I'm not asking for too much or being too difficult; I really tried to keep everything functionally equal. Nothing that I'm doing with these changes are, statwise, things I couldn't do as a regular monk anyways, as far as I can see. The goal is just to change the flavor, not to give myself a power boost. Again, thanks for consideration, sorry about the long posts! ~Aaron S.

How about if you just RP a short sword/whatever light blade you want as if were a psionic arm blade or whatever? That seems simple. All the usual rules and limitations would apply, but you could RP it how you say above. Similarly, if you get a magic weapon, you can treat it as a magic short sword and RP it as your arm blades. Would that work?

That would work just fine- much more elegant and simple way of putting it. Guess I was over thinking it a bit :) Sorry about any confusion, and will get my character sheet done as soon as possible! Thanks!

Matt and other admins, Now that I've logged some hours playing and gotten a feel for the basics of Guild style adventuring I am interested in DMing missions for the Heroes' Guild starting as early as next week. Would you please reply regarding the process of me gaining DM status in this group? I have DMed AD&D/D&D (2nd & 3rd editions) along with other table-top systems.

Dusty B. said: Matt and other admins, Now that I've logged some hours playing and gotten a feel for the basics of Guild style adventuring I am interested in DMing missions for the Heroes' Guild starting as early as next week. Would you please reply regarding the process of me gaining DM status in this group? I have DMed AD&D/D&D (2nd & 3rd editions) along with other table-top systems. I will talk to you when I can

Hello all. Really excited about getting into my first game. Can I just ask how Skype is implemented into the session? Does it need to be on the same computer that's running roll20 or could I just bring the Skype app up on my tablet? Thanks.

on your tablet should be fine, as long as you have a headset with mic (unless the GMs say otherwise :) )

There is no reason it needs to be on the same device. That being said, you need to have headphones on your microphone-enabled device so there isn't echo/feedback, which gets really annoying after 15 minutes, let alone 3 hours.

Hi Matt, thanks so much for the invite, really keen to jump straight in :) Quick question, I have a friend who may or may not be interested in joining as well. Would it be alright if I let him know about the group and got him to send in an request to join? I understand that the chances of him and I playing in the same session are completely random so no issue there.

Sure, just have him post on the listing.

Matt and Sean, I am interested in DMing starting as early as next week. I chatted with Sean and satisfied his requirements. Sean mentioned Matt may want to chat w/me. Would you please reply regarding the process of me gaining DM status in this group? I have a guild adventure module ready to go.

Hit me up in skype chat sometime when you're around and we'll chat about it.

Hey Matt, just wanted to leave some feedback no Eric's session yesterday, where should I post that?

If Eric specifically requested it, you can post it in the forums. If you'd like it to be more private, you can send me a PM.

Hi there, I just joined and I'm new to Roll20, would I be allowed to sit in and watch a session so I can get the feel for it? Thanks.

Sure, send me a PM with your skype name. I'll be running a session tomorrow at 3:30 PM Pacific Time (U.S.)

Also new with the Roll20 scene, had to sit the last, last session out because i couldnt get my stuff set up in a timely manner and didnt want to delay the group. I have no idea how to set up some of my macros, would love help with that and if someone can make sure my character sheet looks fine. I've roll played before once but someone had already done all the hard work for me, so this is techniqually a first.

Geno, join the game, i'll try to help you out with your macros.

Geno, there will often be someone in-game who can help you out.

Hey I was just wondering if there was a kind person who could set me into the basics of creating a character, as I am quite confused of all the different classes and races I am able to choose.

Yes, we can help you out if you hit the join game button, but honestly, it is most helpful if you read through the indicated chapters (1,2,8, and 9) from the Players Handbook (PHB) because otherwise we will just have to re-write something that is already written. It's only about 50 pages or so and you really can skim most of chapter 9, but it will give you a much better idea of how things work.

I've found the book, gonna give the chapters a go then. Thanks.

I don't understand the race features level class and paragon path