::A Geek in Korea::

My Play by post group has continued to play through Keep on the Shadowfell on the web. My Orc Paladin, Ganash, is a strictly melee fighter. I’ve been hit by arrows, taunted by demons, and generally harassed throughout the game. The rogue in the party made off with a share of gold because I bestowed protection onto a creature we found, and rather than let him sell it into slavery. There has been lots of fun role playing to be had so far.The combat so far hasn’t been as fulfilling for me as I had hoped.

The first chance I had to act heroic was during a goblin attack. We fought them off, but I only killed one or two. The Warlord NPC turned the tide of the battle, healing us at a critical moment and routing the rest of the fighters before we were defeated. That’s okay, because where Paladins really shine is against the undead. The first scene where we had with some zombies coming towards us I didn’t roll a very high initiative and chose to let the zombies come to me rather than aggressively charge. The Deva Wizard torched nearly all of them before we even got into hand to hand combat. I only put one of the undead down in that combat too. It wasn’t bad tactics on my part, just simple kick ass rolling on the Wizards part.

Anyway, after being knocked around and forced to spend several healing surges, I ended up getting an action point and having a surprise round. An action point is an opportunity to do something bad ass twice per round because you took on a greater challenge without resting. It adds strategy to every move and builds drama during a big fight. A surprise round is basically a free round to do something before the other party moves. Not having the books in front of me for a reference point, I decided to make a mad charge for the undead that were summoning something evil into the world. I took a double move, then spent an action point to cross the board, charged, then took a hostile attack of opportunity to smack down the undead barbarian that was nearby. I was basically Lancelot charging across the entire map to smack down someone. I went ridiculously far (Nearly four or five times my normal movement rate through a combinations of mechanics for running and charging with my racial bonuses for being an aggresive Orc) and ran up and stabbed someone from across the map.

It looked fishy to me that even in perfect conditions I would have been able to cross so many squares that quickly, but I tried to do it with some flair. When I got home and checked the Player’s Handbook, it turns out that neither I, nor the DM had been ruling the surprise round correctly. No one else in the party had any idea of the proper ruling either, so no one was trying to get away with anything. It was just a rule that slipped everyone’s mind while trying to set up a good fight.

We had been playing as if a free round was like any other round of combat but only one side got to move. This allows for ridiculous actions like my charge all the way across the board. Even I could see that this couldn’t have been correct. Instead of a “Free round” of full actions, there was only supposed to be a single action that the opponents couldn’t react to before real combat began. No one knew that. The rules also expressly forbid that I spending an Action Point like I had. The rule is “only ONE action on a surprise round.”

Had I know that, I would have been much farther away and would need to spend another round reaching melee range. I could have made it where I was in another round, but not the surprise round, which changes things tactically. Once we were in proper combat I could spend the Action Point and move twice, but the Undead creatures would have had a round to fire arrows or blast me first. Basically everyone’s action during the entire round of combat was against the rules, and I only discovered it when I went to look it up for this post.

Does it matter if everyone was still having fun? The DM has yet to rule, but I posted the appropriate page now that I discovered my error. It’s up to him to make the call, as the DM’s word is law.

The best part of D&D in a friendly setting like this is that we can all just decide if we want to enforce the rule and start over the combat, or just fudge the round and give some sort of reason why this could happen. It was an honest mistake, but since the players are also the arbiters of the rules and nothing is competitive, we can just make it up now and see what happens.

Perhaps my character’s god gave him an extra boost to help him across the battlefield? Perhaps the undead were incredibly engrossed in the raising ceremony and just didn’t notice this time, with an understanding that we’d play the combat out following the rules better next time. Personally I would prefer just having fun rather than worrying we got every rule correct as long as no one was trying to exploit anything. It was pretty hilarious to run all the way across the board just to hit someone, either way.