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I have posted one of my playtest under the combat section a while back about how grappling worked in one of my games. Well this time I'm posting about my game sessions here.
To start things off, I'm mainly using the 3.5 rules with a few of the Alpha rules. The party is set up like this.
Human Binder 3
Human Duskblade 3
Half-elf Warmage 3
Gnome Rogue 3
I didn't do any of the Racial changes or the class changes yet because I didn't want to introduce one thing for one character and not others. So I decided to move from there. The party was already at 3rd level by the time the Alpha document came out so I didn't really institute many changes.
Changes that were made.
I gave all the players a flat HP boost. I chose 10 because I wanted the players to feel a little stronger than the average person. This would normally happen at first level and equal out since I have my players roll their HP. I didn't do the Favored Class HP boost because I hadn't read that part at the time.
The next thing I changed was special combat abilities. I switched to CMB. I liked it's simplicity and how it made it sleightly more difficult to perfom these manuevers.
I started using the Patherfinder APL encounter system and XP rewards. I didn't change the games current Xp values because I wanted to see how fast they would go up.
April 4th Playtest
This game was very combat intensive.
The first encounter was a test of numbers. I drafted a Tainted Raver Human Commoner 1(Tainted Raver Template can be found in the Heroes of Horror Supplement by WotC). According to the Alpha document, this creature would be a CR 1/4. Since the APL of the party is 3, I could throw 12 of these creatures at the party and still challenge them. Now these commoners were really easy to kill but they could hit the party decently well. This combat lasted a total of 3 rounds. The players were hit a few times and expended little of their resources. The combat started in the parties favor. They had almost all the top Initiatives, but they decided to hold back until their enemies came closer. This proved to be a wise move. The warmage was the only one to actually act on his turn. He moved ahead some, cast on the defensive, and took out 5 of their foes. Something I would have liked to see was that casting on the defensive not be so easy because in a level or two, he will not need to roll anymore. Since these commoners were tainted, they were not able to use logic and run. So they advanced on the party. Those players(the binder and the Duskblade) that had held their actions took their turn and dropped another of these creatures. The Rogue was able to get two hits off as well but was uncessful at dropping the creature. The next round, the battle field had closed in, so the warmage had to make some adjustments. He chose to cast some of his O level spells and try to conserve his higher levels ones. He chose to Ray of Frost one of these creatures but missed. The Binder decided to swing with his Greatsword and dropped another, The creatures went and caused some damage to the rogue. The duskblade moved in and dropped another with his greatsword. The Rogue, finally killed one. The next round, the fight was pretty much over. Some more spellcasting by the Warmage and the blows dealt by the Binder and Duskblade finished that round. Score 1 for the PC's.
The second Encounter was to test Numbers and Strength. I chose to throw some more Tainted Ravers at the party but this time they were Warriors level 2. This made them a CR 1/2. This Fighter Lasted much longer than the weak commoners. This went out to about 10 rounds. I won't go into much detail on this one but I did have a Sunder attack, a bull rush, and several trip attempts. The Binder was the one that decided an AoO was well worth the ability to take a Sunder or Bull Rush and his gamble proved correct. He broke a Warriors sword so I had the chance to test the Broken Condition(and it's quite a hinderence). The bull rush was also successful for a 5 foot push into a wall. The Halberd wielding warriors could not trip the Duskblade for the life of them. With a CMB of +5, they could not beat his 20 defense. I was sleightly disappointed by this but realized it was more benefical to the players this way. If I had succeed on those trip attempts, the duskblade would have become useless and taken multiple attacks to get back up. Ultimately the PC's one but were severly beaten. They had expended about half for their remaining resources from the previous fight. The Binder quickly switch over to a healer vestige and healed up the party. So they were healthy but still did not have full magic.
There was an encounter with a dire rat of CR 2 but that ended quickly and they quickly moved on to the final fight of the night. I decided to make this one harder. I created a Tainted Minion Human Fighter 5(Another Template from the Heroes of Horror supplement). According to Alpha document, this was a CR 4 encounter. And it truly felt like that. The Warmage was the only one to truly get full damage on this creature. The encounter went 5 rounds. The Binder and Rogue were not truly able to do much in this combat since the creature could shrug off their damage. The Warmage and the Duskblade were the main combatants. I did design this monster to attempt bull rushes but the PC's quickly surrounded him so he didn't have much room to play with. So he quickly resorted to power attack and was hitting the PC's for about 12 damage a hit. He was a BSword and Board guy. The Warmage was the ultimate winner in this combat. His Edge proved to be the difference between damage being low to it actually being a moderate amount of damage.
If you have any questions, just go ahead and ask. I'll post up some more in two weeks since that's how often this group meets. Until then, I hope you enjoy.
I've often found that the warmage's edge gives them just that, an edge during a fight. It is especially useful at the lower levels.
I'm glad I found your thread. Look forward to keeping up with it now.
~Anry
(smurf)
Seems like, at least at the lower end, the CR encounter system is working out fairly well from the document, as it doesn't seem to be too far off in my campaign either. It'll be interesting to see if this is borne out in more campaigns with a wider range of creatures.
As far as the warmage goes, once he gets high enough level to ignore his spellcraft checks, opponents that are used to fighting spellcasters should probably have the Mage Slayer feat, since this cancels out casting defensively. Not everyone should have it, but a few experienced warriors should be a nasty surprise for him.
I'm wondering if, given that Spellcraft will automatically be maxed out for a spellcaster, if a Mage Slayer type of feat in Pathfinder might not be a good idea, or if this is something that should be left to "backwards compatibility." Probably a point best pondered after the next revision to skills comes up.
Yes it should. But I think we'll be seeing the return of ranks or something at least similarly. So it may not be such a problem in the end.
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I hope to see a skills revision in the next document Jason puts out. I also hope to see a Character Sheet this time. I don't mind the Wizard preventing AoO's but number wise, it's far too easy. Most players I know don't utilized it as often so Mage Slayer is really necessary though a reoccuring villian will get this ability.^_^
I found a couple of decent made character sheets in the forums for the playtest. Shouldn't be that hard to find one actually even if they don't have it in the next release.