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Resolving immediate defense actions in a PbP

So I’m in a quandary here. A player in my 3.5 Eberron PbP wants to know about a ring in the Magic Item Compendium that allows a person to, as an immediate action, declare they want to use the ring to gain a +2 deflection bonus to AC against a single attack. The ring can do this four times a day. At the table, I would simply tell the player, “X attacks you” and the player would let me know before the attack was resolved whether or not they wanted to use the ring. In a PbP, however, it’s not that simple.

I don’t like the idea of telling the player “X hits you for Y damage” only to allow the player to say “I would have used the ring!” and have to retcon everything. I think that puts too much power in the hands of the player. Also, I don’t want to slow things down just to ask the player “do you use the ring?” before every single attack against them in combat. OTOH, I don’t want to tell the player “no you can’t have it” because it’s a pretty cool “not in the face!” item.

So what ways could I do this to not slow things down and not put too much power in the players hands but still keep things fun and fair?

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Posted in: 3.5, D&D, Play-by-Post, RPG

5 Responses to “Resolving immediate defense actions in a PbP”

Mike Rainey July 29th, 2009 at 1:38 PM

“Also, I don’t want to slow things down just to ask the player “do you use the ring?” before every single attack against them in combat.”

Unfortunately, you may end up having to do that.

An alternative may be to get with the player and to set up one or more conditions that, if they happen, the ring activates, such as “If the attack would have missed if the player had activated the ring”.

My $.02

Hypersmurf July 29th, 2009 at 1:43 PM

(Huh – the Security Word for this comment was ‘d20′! Cool!)

I recommend changing the paradigm of the ring slightly. Run as written, the information the player has is “You are being attacked”. He needs to decide based on that information whether or not he wants to apply one of his four chances at a +2. That attack might miss by 15, or might hit by 7… in either case, +2 AC makes zero difference. It only has an effect when the attack is in the range of AC+0 to AC+1.

So instead, make a deal with the player. He can nominate when the use of the ring is ‘on the table’ – “Not when we’re fighting the gate guards or the giant rats, but when that ogre comes back, I want the ring in the equation!” Or “Any time I’m below 15 hit points!”

And then set an automatic threshold – say the range AC-2 to AC+3. If his AC is 17, the ring will automatically expend a charge when the attack roll is between 15 and 20. If it’s exactly 17 or 18, the ring saves him! If it’s a 15, 16, 19, or 20, it doesn’t.

Given that normally, if he chooses an attack himself, the ring will save him on two numbers out of twenty on a die roll, it’s a pretty good deal for him… with the disadvantage being that it removes him a little from the decision loop. The advantage to you? It saves that extra two steps in the communication cycle of every single attack.

But he needs to make sure his “Ring is in play!” declarations or conditions are clear, just so you don’t get the “Aww, but I *would* have!” scenario you described.

-Hyp.

Sam Greenberg July 29th, 2009 at 6:58 PM

Is it even obvious that the player gets to know how close the attack was? I’m not sure players are even allowed to say “If the attack is w/in 2 of my defenses, I want to use my ‘+3 to defenses’ spell.”

PrecociousApprentice July 30th, 2009 at 12:15 AM

This comes up a lot in 4e PbP games. We handle it my requiring a loose algorythm the GM can use to decide when the player gets the effect. Since it is out of player control a little, just give it a little better effect via GM fudging.

Here is how I would do it.

Tell the player to create a list of conditions under which the ring will automatically fire. Then tell the player that you will metagame a little to give him a little extra. Ask them, if you had perfect knowledge of the situation, when would you like it to fire? What is the damage threshhold that is necessary for you to feel like it was a good use?

Then fudge it a little as a GM. Give the player the benefit of the doubt. Every now and then, pretend that the player has perfect knowledge. At other times, run it with the preset conditions as guides.

Any reasonable player of PbP games knows that these kinds of compromises have to be made for the PbP format. The death of most PbP games is a result of slow posting, so the player should understand that slow posting should be avoided at all costs. If they can’t understand this, then the game is doomed to failure anyway, so you can play any way you like. It won’t last long.

Hypersmurf July 30th, 2009 at 3:05 PM

> Is it even obvious that the player gets to know how close the attack was?

I don’t think they do… hence my comment of “normally, if he chooses an attack himself, the ring will save him on two numbers out of twenty on a die roll”…

Most of the time, activating the ring will either result in a miss that would have missed anyway, or won’t be sufficient to prevent a hit. It’s only 10% of ring activations that will actually make a difference.

-Hyp.