crepesack said:
I'm just daunted by all these pages. How much should I know? What will actually tell me how to play? This is like taking another class. It's all very confusing.
Don't sweat it. you dont need the whole book memorized or anything crazy like that. 90% is situational and in the end once you got the basic mechanics down you will be good.
A combat is like this.
Surprise round: did anyone get the jump on another group? was there an unprepared party? If so that unprepared party does not act in round 0.
Initiative. Roll a twenty sider and add the dexterity to it. If there is a large group of monsters than feel free to roll once or twice and group them together. The numbers that you and the players rolled determined the order the turns go in.
Combat. Lets break this up into categories.
Attack Rolls: player rolls a d20 and adds str or dex depending on the weapon, their Base Attack Bonus (BAB), and any misc modifiers (spells potions and enchantments)
Movement. Most races move 30 feet a round (this is a run not a walking speed) A player or NPC can take a 5 foot (1 square) move for free with out any Attacks of Opportunity.
Attacks of Opportunity. By far this can be the most confusing thing in the game to new players. Attacks of Opportunity occur when a character moves through a hostile characters surrounding squares, or a square that the hostile character can make an attack into with a melee weapon they are using. AoO allows the hostile character to make a free attack as the other runs past him. Moving into an enemies space does not cause a AoO but moving out of their reach does. So running away the enemy gets a free shot in. Also performing a skill check that requires time (like lock pick) can cause an AoO, the rule is if the player is distracted and an enemy is close enough to hit the enemy gets an AoO
Spells. If a spellcaster is hit well casting they must make a concentration check to see if they maintain focus and can cast the spell. They roll a d20+Con+Concentration against a static amount (see the DMG) plus the amount of damage dealt.
Ready an Action. Players can ready an action to a specific event and that action can occur during someone else's turn. For instance "If the enemy mage starts a spell i am going to shoot him." if the mage does not cast than the player essentially loses his turn waiting for the mage to cast, but if he does his action plays the minute the mage casts.
Weird crap. Make a table up with something reasonable that favors the players (assuming it is not totally suicidal) if they do anything that there are no rules for (like cutting a chandler with an arrow so that it crushes the orc captain). Encourage them to do stuff like this, it makes it more interesting and gives a shot at in combat RP.
That's about all you need. The numbers come more and more quick as you play. Be prepared to have your stories ruined by players. Also don't be afraid to let them die, but don't intentionally kill them, and never be afraid to forge a dice roll in their favor (or once every so often against them).
Most of the game is a bunch of people sitting around joking and talking. you'll have fun, don't sweat making a mistake they wont know anyways. Ive done whole games where i had lost vital enemy stats and just winged it. The players never know and as long as you make up some numbers as needed it should be fine.
Just have fun with it.
