|
Hey everyone,
First I am sorry for posting this here. For some reason I was unable to post this to the actual play test forums so if a mod could move this over there it would be appreciated. Thank you in advance and sorry for giving you work.
Before I get to the play test aspect just a few notes and statements I want to give. Feel free to scroll past if you wish not to read it.
GenCon, like always, it was an amazing time. If you have not had the chance to go I highly encourage you do so as sitting with 1000+ PFS members is an amazing feeling.
To Mike Brock. Thank you for your years of hard work and service to our community. No plaque alone given to you at GenCon can say thank you enough for the amount of hours of hard work you have put into to help make this a great society and guild of gamers. Good luck in wherever you go in the future. Always know you have a path back and you will always be welcomed by the players of PFS.
To my table GM and the Author of Under the Ice - Thank you so much for making this game an amazing experience. I was luckily able to sit at the author of the mods table where he created an amazing 3D Map to go with the mission. It was truly amazing and I was glad I was able to experience this. He was both a great GM as well produced a very well written mod. I am looking forward to the next one that he puts out.
Onto the play test part of this post. (The main reason for this post)
My build.
Vigilante 3 - Warlock Specialization
Stats - 10 Str / 16 Dex / Con 14 / Int 14 / Wis 10/ Cha 14
Race - Human (Have to pay your taxes)
Faction - Sovereign Court (Not supposed to talk about this lol)
Traits - Contract Master (Because I too think the social side should be able to pick up languages to speak to other nations and people)
Influential (Because who couldn't use more diplomacy)
Feats - Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Two Weapon Fighting (Told you I had to pay my taxes)
Weapon - Long Bow (Nothing special here just a bow)
Armor - Four Mirror Armor (Went more exotic to increase the look between my characters for story reasons and thematic reasons)
Social Grace - Diplomacy (See above about diplomacy)
Vigilante Spec (Warlock)
Arcane Training 1
Warlock Talent - Arcane Strike
Skills of importance - (AKA what I put points in)
Bluff +9 - Diplomacy +15/+11 - Disguise +28/+8 - Intimidate +8 - Knowledge Local +8 - Linguistics +9 - Perception +8 - Sense Motive +6 - Spellcraft +8 - UMD +8
Only spells used in mod to note - Infernal Healing, Thunder Stomp and detect magic.
And now onto the greater details about the adventure
First and for most about 3/4 of the mission was a RP heavy game. This was because the aspect of my handler (AKA the social side) was able to shine with the diplomacy to help win over the NPCs I came across.
At one point things got a little dicey and I was able to intimidate as my vigilante to avoid a fight. Because of this we were able to continue on with our mission to find the sky key with no combat having occurred. This very aspect was amazing as it allowed me to play stern and gruff as the vigilante and more calm and relaxed when I was playing the handler.
Eventually we made it to the dungeon/abandoned fort where the first combat occurred. I attempted Thunderstomp X1 and was unsuccessful but was able to hit 1 out of 2 times in the following rounds with my bow. After the three rounds the group was successful in bringing down the beast trying to stop us from entering and wanted to take the daughter of Vliyora from us.
The rest of the dungeon went pretty smooth until the last encounter. Once again I attempted Thunderstomp X1 and was not successful. Once again I was 1 out of 2 times able to tag the dwarf with arrows. Sadly we almost lost the daughter due to his special attack that allowed him to run past the party and basically strangle the life out of her. Infernal healing, as well as other party healing, was used to get her off the ground and keep her alive.
Finally we were met outside by guards sent by Vliayara and to punish/kill those that took her daughter with them. Insert diplomancing our way out of the fight with the guards.
We returned back empty handed but with a new direction to the sky key that we were sent to seek out and obtain. (AKA leading into the next part of the story and adventure)
Finally I had a chance before leaving to speak with Vliayara and talk to her about the Sovereign Court. We spoke for a bit where I was able to use diplomacy to recruit her to cooperate with the faction. (Great success. Marked that off on the faction card.)
All in all I found this mod to go very well because I was built to handle diplomacy but can see how the pain and problems can be much harder if the group did not have a face for the group or have built to diplomacy as I did.
Closing thought:
My friend and I have been talking about this class since the play test started. I see the potential in it to allow great amounts of RP using the two faces but know that in some PFS play (as well with home brews and APs) that you might not be able to enjoy that luxury thus taking away one solid aspect of the character.
As for the warlock from what I can see it definitely needs a bit of tuning. From what I can see most of the testers, as well as myself, are not going into the casting aspect because of the tax involved to gain full vigilante casting (which is a weaker form of other classes that are slow progression healers). If someone is going to take that level of tax to go full warlock casting they feel like, why not just play caster X where I can be a better caster?
I am a firm believer that if you are going to point out an issue that you should provide some kind of idea or solution to fix the problem. If the Arcane training was brought from 6 talents to 3 each giving 2 spell levels (1-2 3-4 5-6) this would lower the tax significantly and at least make it a more attractive option.
I also like that you have created an armored casting talent but also see this as a tax that needs to be altered and fine tuned. My suggestion would be to add to Arcane Training 1 the ability to cast in light armor without spell casting issues (to bring in line with other similar caster) but change the arcane armor casting talent to then be to be able to cast without issues in medium armor. This again will lower the tax that a pure caster would feel and possibly make up not being as strong of a caster as other similar casters. This will also allow those that want to be more defensive have to shell out a talent while those who don’t, or want to risk failure, can gain more versatility.
I think the spells per day should be removed from the arcane casting talent and just made static for all versions of warlock while only pure casters would get the higher level of spells. In all I think the above 3 changes should occur to both the Warlock and the Zealot (Minus the armor casting as divine casters do not have the problems casting that arcane ones do) As both Zealot and Warlock share the same issues with casting being very unattractive and very taxing.
Finally I think a suggestion I would give to the class would be to allow cross specialization. Much like Keneticist has the ability to access other elements or further specialize in their chosen element I think this could be an interesting aspect to be added to the class. The second specialization with a delay to skills much like built in keneticist that way the end talents can only be accessed by those of the primary specialization.
The biggest complaint I have read has been that the class fails to fill a niche aspect that other classes can do better. If the above suggestion is added the niche would be to be able to build your character to your characters story of how your character gets the job done. I understand this could lead to possible abuse but as long as the secondary aspect/specialization has a level delay to abilities much like keneticist has this might delay abuse while leading to more creativity available the player.
That is it for now for me. I have three more play test I want to post but I will delay until the forums goes back up. I am looking forward to more testing when I get home from GenCon. Feel free to ask any questions or comments and I will respond as quickly as I can.
Unfortunately, the main feedback portion of the playtest is closed. The forums have been open up until today, but it looks like they finally locked them (probably because there were 50-some posts from a spammer in a couple of threads this morning.)
The second phase of playtesting ends the 17th, so you can continue to play and get lines towards the Chronicle, then add one post in the Final Thoughts thread here
|
To my table GM and the Author of Under the Ice - Thank you so much for making this game an amazing experience. I was luckily able to sit at the author of the mods table where he created an amazing 3D Map to go with the mission. It was truly amazing and I was glad I was able to experience this. He was both a great GM as well produced a very well written mod. I am looking forward to the next one that he puts out.
Thank you so much! I had a ton of fun running for you and your table.
It was interesting for me from a GM stand-point of integrating the Vigilante. I found the handler/agent relationship interesting and a great way to integrate that into the roleplay framework of Pathfinder society. I'll probably recommend it to a friend of mine who's playing a Vigilante in PFS.
Though I can't comment on how the combat capabilities performed, as there were only those two short combats. Your thunderstomp spells were only not effective due to very high rolls (15+ if I recall). The social aspects of your character were not only very well played, but also quite effective in this scenario. Without them, the rest of the party may have still accomplished the "friendly" ending, but there was a combat path for more aggressive parties.
Overall, I look forward to seeing more vigilante play. As an author and designer, I'm sure your feedback is well appreciated by the Paizo design team.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It sounds like you had the only two combats that my group participated in also (the only two mandatory ones, from my experience). Andrew was our GM on Wednesday at Scotty's. My wife was playing a bard with +20ish diplomacy so we also got around most of the combats.
Andrew also forgot the damaging-cold-aura when we fought it, but it only took us two rounds and we also had a life oracle. And 4 out of 6 PCs (and 2 out of 2 companions) had some form of cold resistance on by that point so it wouldn't have made a huge difference.
I was thoroughly impressed with Andrew's GMing style, his system mastery, and his terrain (for obvious reason).
Andrew, if you come back to this thread..
What's the process you go through for making your terrains? I've always been interested in doing that sort of thing but don't know what to do to get started. About how much cost went into your snowcovered ruin (not including time)? And where do you go to get your material?
|
|
What's the process you go through for making your terrains?
First I try and graph it out on graph paper, especially if there are a lot of walls. I honestly think the walls were too high/thick for this one and will try and use smaller walls in the future, and maybe just 1" high to be more representative.
Next you need to cut the material down. I use polystyrene (syro-foam is a brand). You can cut it with an appropriate saw, but make sure you wear a good mask as the dust is very toxic. My preferred method is to use hot-wire cutting tools. This creates a slightly toxic gas, but as long as the area is well ventilated (fan on, window open) you should be fine. Using the hot wire is WAY less messy, and the cut edges are smoothed over because them melt slightly. You can use a variety of hot-wire tools to cut and shape the foam.
About how much cost went into your snowcovered ruin (not including time)?
I spent about $35 on the bulk of the foam by purchasing a very large sheet of 2" thick high-density foam at my local hardware mega-store, then having them cut it down into flip-mat size. About $25 worth of foam-coat (a type of quick-dry cement) and foam glue. A few cans of paint and varnish that probably cost me about $50, but I have tons left for future large-scale projects. You want to use acrylic and water-based paints and varnish. I got both high-gloss and matte finish wood varnish to use as top coats in various areas. The high-gloss I used for the ice effect on the floors, while the matte varnish I used everywhere else. This is important, as it will help protect against chipping. I didn't varnish the top coverings and they got really badly damaged from all the use and transport.
And where do you go to get your material?
The hardware store, mostly. I used both high density (extruded) polystyrene and low density (expanded) polystyrene. The high density stuff is very firm and rigid, takes longer to cut through, and looks "smooth." It is usually mint green or light pink. The low density stuff looks like all those compact little white balls. You can get tons of free material from packaged electronics and things, but it's usually irregular shapes and sizes. Also, some of it is denser than others.
On my terrain, some of the blocks are from a fairly loose foam, something I regret. It ended up being spongy to the touch and has easily broken off and taken damage. In the future, I'll try to stick to high density foam, even if I have to purchase it.
Note on cost of high density: It's far cheaper to buy a huge sheet and just have them cut it down into a few large pieces than to buy all the smaller sheets of large pieces.
Last thought: you can also use foam-core boards from your local craft store for the base and walls. These are pretty cheap, and you can pull the paper off if you want, but don't have to. I haven't worked with them much, but they're a good quick/easy way to make terrain.
I plan on writing a whole blog post about it soon (see within 3 months) before starting my next big project.
|
|
Oh, the snow effect cost a total of $2.50. I used a $1 box of baking soda and a $1.50 bottle of white glue.
There are two basic techniques:
Combine and Dab - Pour glue into a small container, then add baking soda until a nice thick consistency is reached. Spread that on the desired areas.
Squirt and Cover - Apply white glue to the model in areas you want snow, then liberally cover the areas with baking soda.
I used both for different needs. In both cases you want to set it sit overnight without messing with it too much. For Squirt and Cover, you then blow off all the excess Baking Soda (outside!) using a large set of lungs or can of compressed air.
Last thing, very important:
DO NOT use any petroleum based products on the foam including superglue and spray paint. They will melt the foam quicker than a red dragon on an ice burg. Gotta do it all by hand, as even water based spray paints often use a petrol based propellant.
|
|
Are there pictures available of that project Andrew? I am curious now :)
I've got some on my phone I can upload somewhere.. Gimme a bit and I'll post links
None of those really show off the icy-ness that came out in the floor of some areas. And they're really just snapshots, but it does give a good idea of just how cool it was.