Hey guys,
Here are my notes for the game I just ran.
It was a made up encounter. Originally, it was going to be a troll, a battle mage, daring bravo, and a traitorous brigand, but the loss of 2 players right before the playtest meant the troll got ixnayed.
The rules were pretty simple: 15 point buy (the way god intended!), core races only.
All were 5th level.
Characters:
HP: 32
Abilities:
AC: 18
Str 14 Dex 14 Con 10 Int 16 Wis 13 Cha 8
Feats: Catch Off Guard, Improved Unarmed Strike, XXX (not sure)
Talents: Perceptive Tracking, Inspired Alertness
Formula:
1st: 3 CLW, 1 Keen Senses
2nd: 3 CMW (not sure why he didn't have infusion, but eh)
Used a swordcane
HP: 34
Abilities:
AC: 22
Str 8 Dex 20 Con 14 Int 7 Wis 14 Cha 9
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Deadly Aim
Talents: Camo, fast stealth
Longbow +1 (1d6+2+4(DA)+1d6(SA))
Uhh, don't actually have his stats. He had Power Attack, Weapon Focus, and a greataxe. Also used Raging Song (Superstitious) and cast Ear Piercing Scream and Soundburst.
The encounter setup:
Here are my as-they-happened notes:
Slayer snuck up and sneak attacked from range the brigand
brigand walked up (due to difficult terrain, couldn’t charge) to slayer and attacked. rolled 13, total of 20. missed the slayer’s 22 AC.
skald moved up and raged. has superstitious. Slayer turns down the rage
slayer moved into other foliage and stealthed, then sneak attacked. did 12 damage. Same as what he did before
investigator rolled a 9, +6 for 15 against AC 16 wizard
scorching ray, did 7 damage against the investigator. Argh!
Brigand 5’ stepped back, swung at the Bardbarian. Rolled a 2, missed.
Bardbarian did Ear piercing scream. Brigand did took 4 damage, and rolled 2 on the save. Dazed for one round
Slayer stealthed up to near the mage, shot. Critically hit and confirmed, but hit one of the mirror images.
mage 5’ stepped above the investigator, but stayed within reach, and used shocking grasp. missed with that.
gnome jumped down, trying to land on the slayer. didn’t land on him, but got an attack in. rolled 16 and hit him for 3 points of damage.
the bardbarian attacked the brigand, hit. Did 9 damage. Brigand is at negative, but has orc ferocity, so he’ll get one more attack in.
Slayer provokes an AoO, gets critically hit for 7 damage. Moves across the field, then stealths.
mage touches the investigator, for 5 shocking damage
brigand swings, hits with power attack. Deals 7 damage to the bardbarian. Goes unconscious after this due to orc ferocity.
The skald dropped sound burst. 3 damage, killing the brigand and stunning both the others.
Investigator drops swordcane, and picks up a stick. He has catch off guard. Hits the gnome with the stick. Does 10 damage.
Bardbarian attacked the mage, did 18 damage. One off from the total HP.
The slayer shot the mage, killing her.
Somehow, the investigator was the tank.
The enemies were plagued with a lot. of. bad. rolls. I think that throws a lot of the data from this playtest into the "questionable use" bin, but we'll see.
I'm having the players answer 9 questions related to their experience.
From what I saw, given the right tools, the slayer was pretty deadly. They were getting sneak attacks off round after round due to all the spare foliage they could hide in. And after the first few rounds, enemies were in the open, so they weren't protected by the foliage's concealment. He used favored target twice. Once against the Brigand, once against both the mage and the daring bravo. Given his playstyle, the move action cost didn't hurt at all.
The bardbarian messed up, and cast spells while raging. He thought it wasn't clear, as he recalled seeing clarification that bards could cast spells while using performance. He thought that rage song was a bardic performance, so that he could cast during it. Wouldn't have affected the outcome, I think, as once he started casting spells, he didn't really move. He was alright, overall. The Slayer turned down the rage, since then he wouldn't be able to stealth. The investigator was never in range to use it. The skald tried to give out superstitious. He chose half-orc solely so he could use the greataxe.
The investigator drew the short end of the stick. He ended up being the tank, at no fault of his own. Enemies just rolled poorly against him, and I don't think he ever used any class abilities other than tracking to figure out the right away the enemies went (for a better approach). And he used sneak attack once, after the bardbarian stunned the bravo and the mage. He also missed quite a bit, but that was partially due to the caster using Mirror Image. Ok, not just partially. Mostly due to that. At one point, he threw down his +1 swordcane in frustration and used a stick. He said he was more built for roleplaying, so it was sort of what he expected.
I'll post their responses to these 9 questions once I get them.
• 1:What was the most fun aspect of your character's class? (This is to gauge what works, it's important to let the design team to know this).
• 2:What was the least fun aspect? (This is just to gauge what the player didn't enjoy about the class. They don't need to have an answer to this if they enjoyed it all. This is important data.)
• 3:What bit of rules did you have most trouble with, for example what did you find confusing, or not useful about your abilities, what abilities didn't you use at all this session? (This question is to gauge what language might be unclear, and whether some abilties need to be cut or changed)
• 4:Would you still play [component of class] knowing this class exists as an alternative? (This question is to gauge whether the hybrid robs too much of the parent classes uniqueness.)
• 5:Do any of the classes seem exceptionally powerful or weak in combat, especially compared to its related classes?
• 6:Do any of them seem especially fragile?
• 7:Are they particularly good or bad at performing tasks expected of them, both as adventurers and for their role in the party (skills, NPC interaction, investigation, and so on).
• 8:Any mechanics that are cumbersome in play?
• 9:Any rules that were confusing or you had to make a ruling on?
1: I felt like I was doing a pretty high amount of damage, and the favored target bonuses was pretty great. The stealth options really made my fighting tactic of “Move=hide -> Standard=Sneak attack” viable. We didn’t test this, but I like that it can be used out of combat for bluff/survival/sense motive/etc.
2: I didn’t have much time to find things I didn’t like. I think that the tactic I used would have been less useful in a more open area, or with iteratives being an option. It might have worked as a Vital Strike build.
3: I understood and used all of the abilities that I had.
4: I wouldn’t play ranger, as there’s a lot of management involved with the companion and spells. I might still play a rogue or rogue-archetype over this one for characters that would use more iterative attacks, but for the intent I made my character for, the slayer worked.
5: Not sure about this.
6: Not sure about this.
7: Seemed fine in all regards
8: I felt much more streamlined than most characters that I play of any variety. No spells to deal with, no companion, no familiar. Just you, your stealth, and your targets.
9: Nope.
Keep in mind that this playtest was all of 1 hour long.
1. The combination of support and combat effectiveness was fun.
2. I didn’t find anything particularly un-fun about playing this class, but the playtest was rather limited.
3. The nature of the raging song wasn’t completely clear in terms of how equivalent it was to the regular bardic performance. I made the assumption that spells that were designed to be used with bardic performance could also be used with raging song, which is apparently not correct. One thing that seems not particularly useful about this class is that raging song, arguably the defining mechanic of the class, does not benefit casters or DEX-heavy classes so they will tend to opt out of it, making it of limited usefulness since these classes tend to make up a significant proportion of adventuring parties. Also, one class feature that I didn’t make much use of was the spellcasting ability, since it was in direct opposition to the rage. I think the spellcasting would be useful outside of combat or when not raging, but I didn’t experience that because our playtest was a fairly short combat encounter.
4. No, under most circumstances I would rather play one of the component classes.
5. This class did not seem particularly powerful nor weak.
6. This class did not seem fragile.
7. As noted for question 3, the raging song was of limited benefit since a relatively small proportion of our party was ranged, casters,or DEX-heavy, and therefore unwilling to accept the limitations of the rage.
8. None of the mechanics for this class seemed particularly cumbersome.
9. As noted for question 3, the nature of raging song as related to standard bardic performance was unclear, specifically with regards to spells intended to be cast during bardic performance.
The investigator drew the short end of the stick. He ended up being the tank, at no fault of his own.
That seems poor. :)
Yea, I don't think he expected it either. But when a Shocking Grasp does 5 damage, and a scorching ray does 7...anyone can tank.
This looks like a perfect example of the issues with sneak attack being more of a hindrance than help discussed in the slayer thread.
The slayer built themselves around using sneak attack at range (a tactic that would be useless in the first encounter that wasn't covered in concealment sources) even though they had 1/3 of the SA die of a rogue at the same level.
They could have ignored that SA existed, taken rapid shot instead of fast stealth or camo, and been full attacking every round. They would have had 2 attacks at 1d6 + bonuses instead of 1d6 + bonuses + 1d6 and spending move actions and at least one full round in combat getting stealth.
The_Lake, the player's purpose was to test out the archetypical 'sniper' character that a lot of people are fond of, and I guess keeping that in mind is important context for the playtest.
The_Lake, the player's purpose was to test out the archetypical 'sniper' character that a lot of people are fond of, and I guess keeping that in mind is important context for the playtest.
Ok if the goal is to be a sneaky sniping character then i change my answer to could have been a rogue for more sneak attack if sneak attacking all the time is your focus.
Ok, got the feedback from the Investigator's player:
Here is some commentary on the investigator:
I really enjoy the concept this character is centered around. I like the idea of playing a Sherlock Holmes character (which is what I was basing my build on). I could also see it being very much like an assassin’s creed type character which would also be fun.
The class doesn’t seem to have a lot of combat abilities. You can add some inspiration in, but not really much as far as having specific maneuvers to use. The Sneak attack helped with damage, but if that goes away, something else would have to replace it. I could see the sneak attack getting a little weaker (maybe you end up with 4d6 by 20th level?) to allow something else to come in too.
I would still play a rogue or alchemist as this seems to take only part of each class to get something unique rather than just parts of each.
Otherwise he was fairly easy to play.