Vigil and Mordulin's Playtest report

[Vigil]

Since getting together a second time each week to run playtest characters wasn't really happening, and Alpha 2 had all of the classes currently used in our weekly Rise of the Runelords game, our group made the decision to just convert our RotRL characters over and make our weekly game a playtest. We're deep into Hook Mountain Massacre by this point, and after converting characters, managed to get through only Part 3: Down Comes the Rain.

Specific player feedback:

The druid

Spoiler:

(a male gnome pyro named Fireblossom) was delighted with the fire domain. It fit his character very well, and let him sell the wand of produce flame that's been his signature ability for some time now. Shapechanging was more for movement and defenses, but he kept his wildshape usage to a minimum until he has the chance to pick a few favored forms and write down exactly what his stats are like while so transformed.

The cleric

Spoiler:

gets even better at these levels. The positive energy channeling finally heals a decent amount of HP per use, and she was able to use her own prepared spells as she prepared them, not dipping into them at all for spontaneous cures. She feels like she's a full-fledged caster, not a back-up caster holding onto spells she'd like to use in case someone needs the healing.

The dwarf barbarian

Spoiler:

burned through 39 of his 43 rage points during the adventure, so the formula for gaining rage points seems right on track to provide a degree of resource management without encouraging a 15 minute adventuring day. Power Attack plus Surprise Accuracy FTW!

The wizard and rogue are still being tweaked, I'll have more firm observations later.

GM observations: Still digging how easy XP is to award. Absolutely keep this system!

Power Attack is a frequent combat option for the giants and ogres and trolls the party is facing right now, and I had to mentally calculate the Str bonus, atttack penalty, and damage bonus over and over again. Please include the power attack figures in the stat block, likely with the other combat options. It will make combats on my side of the screen much faster!

[Vigil]

The party finished Hook Mountain Massacre last night, and are now 10th level. More observations!

The Wizard,

Spoiler:

formerly an evoker/ master specialist gunning for archmage, was rebuilt as a straight wizard. Still an evoker, though. The player was honestly surprised that his spell-like abilities' save DC's were close to his normal spell saves. He had a CHA of 14 (originally for Role-playing purposes), and school focus applies to both his spells and spell-like abilities. I guess going into it, that player kinda expected to rely on his spells, delegating the SA's as fit for mooks only. He was very pleased that they were more effective than he first assumed they'd be.

The Rogue

Spoiler:

was originally a rogue 3/ fighter 2/ invisible blade 1/ master thrower 2. With the extra feats she got in the upgrade, she was able to rebuild without the fighter levels. So now she's a rogue 6/ invisible blade 1/ master thrower 3. Not a whole lot simpler, but more focused. And she says the character still feels the same. Which is good, because she's put a lot of work into developing this character's back-story, I'd hate if halfway through the Adventure Path she had some kind of disconnect from the character.

The 3.5 prestige class levels were a piece of cake to convert over. HD=base attack progression, change skill list to meet the new condensed list, and you're pretty much set.

The cleric is still diggin' on being an active offensive caster. The barbarian is still diggin' his rage powers. The druid is using wildshape more now. He wrote his stats out for his favored forms to keep book-flipping and on-the-fly math to a minimum.

[Blayde MacRonan]

Like many people on the boards, I always like reading the playtests done by others. The only reason that I haven't done up one myself is because my players want to wait until the 3rd Alpha release is up so that they can make the necessary changes all at once. In the meantime though, please keep up the good work.

[Pneumonica]

Vigil wrote:

The 3.5 prestige class levels were a piece of cake to convert over. HD=base attack progression, change skill list to meet the new condensed list, and you're pretty much set.

I would question this - not even all the base classes have matched HD to BAB (barbarian). I would not have melded the PrC HD to BAB, but left them as-is. Obviously, the skill list change is groovy. ;-p

Hopefully there'll be notes about PrC conversion in Alpha 3, but I won't be hacked off if there aren't.

[hogarth]

So the druid wasn't disappointed that he had to give up his animal companion in exchange for the Fire Domain? Looking at the abilities, that seems like kind of a weak trade:

-Fire Bolt -- fun at low levels, but kind of pointless at higher levels
-Burning Hands -- pointless at higher levels
-Resist Energy (fire only) -- pretty weak
-Crown of Flames -- Weak ability that only works when someone punches me in the face :)
-Wall of Fire -- O.K.
-Fire Storm -- O.K.
-Elemental Swarm -- I hate that 10 minute casting time

[mordulin]

Pneumonica wrote:

Vigil wrote:

The 3.5 prestige class levels were a piece of cake to convert over. HD=base attack progression, change skill list to meet the new condensed list, and you're pretty much set.

I would question this - not even all the base classes have matched HD to BAB (barbarian). I would not have melded the PrC HD to BAB, but left them as-is. Obviously, the skill list change is groovy. ;-p

Hopefully there'll be notes about PrC conversion in Alpha 3, but I won't be hacked off if there aren't.

Actually Vigil was incorrect about the HD = BAB for the prestige classes. I helped the rogue player convert her character and I kept the original HD for those PRCs. The only thing I changed was the skills to match the new combined skills (Didn't add any new ones).

[mordulin]

hogarth wrote:

So the druid wasn't disappointed that he had to give up his animal companion in exchange for the Fire Domain? Looking at the abilities, that seems like kind of a weak trade:

-Fire Bolt -- fun at low levels, but kind of pointless at higher levels
-Burning Hands -- pointless at higher levels
-Resist Energy (fire only) -- pretty weak
-Crown of Flames -- Weak ability that only works when someone punches me in the face :)
-Wall of Fire -- O.K.
-Fire Storm -- O.K.
-Elemental Swarm -- I hate that 10 minute casting time

Our druid player's gnome's name is Fireblossom. He likes fire spells better than anything else. His animal companion was originally being used as a mount but he felt it was worth losing it for unlimited fire damage (Fire Bolt). He's not a powergamer (that role belongs to me...:P) so the decrease in ability doesn't bother him. He just continues to play him as an oddball caster with an affinity for nature and frying pans....

[lastknightleft]

hogarth wrote:

So the druid wasn't disappointed that he had to give up his animal companion in exchange for the Fire Domain? Looking at the abilities, that seems like kind of a weak trade:

-Fire Bolt -- fun at low levels, but kind of pointless at higher levels
-Burning Hands -- pointless at higher levels
-Resist Energy (fire only) -- pretty weak
-Crown of Flames -- Weak ability that only works when someone punches me in the face :)
-Wall of Fire -- O.K.
-Fire Storm -- O.K.
-Elemental Swarm -- I hate that 10 minute casting time

I thought all SLA's had a casting time of a standard action?

And I don't know about you, but as a DM I am constantly having baddies rush the casters to take them out, so melee damage to casters is quite common.

[hogarth]

lastknightleft wrote:

I thought all SLA's had a casting time of a standard action?

According to the SRD: "A spell-like ability takes the same amount of time to complete as the spell that it mimics (usually 1 standard action) unless otherwise stated."

lastknightleft wrote:

And I don't know about you, but as a DM I am constantly having baddies rush the casters to take them out, so melee damage to casters is quite common.

Most of the time I'm playing a spellcaster, I'll only get hit once or twice per fight. Doing 1d6+lvl/2 damage once or twice per fight is not very exciting to me (at level 8, anyway). YMMV.

[Moondarq]

hogarth wrote:

So the druid wasn't disappointed that he had to give up his animal companion in exchange for the Fire Domain? Looking at the abilities, that seems like kind of a weak trade:

-Fire Bolt -- fun at low levels, but kind of pointless at higher levels
-Burning Hands -- pointless at higher levels
-Resist Energy (fire only) -- pretty weak
-Crown of Flames -- Weak ability that only works when someone punches me in the face :)
-Wall of Fire -- O.K.
-Fire Storm -- O.K.
-Elemental Swarm -- I hate that 10 minute casting time

As DM, my experience with players using animal companions breaks down into these situations:

1) The player creates an effective animal companion, which provides additional tankage for the adventuring party, or perhaps has other uses depending on the druid's ingenuity and the DM's permissiveness. In addition the druid often opts to prepare spells that make his companion even more effective.

or

2) The player picks an animal he or she thinks is neat or cute. The druid often forgets about the animal companion. The player forgets or gets confused about advancing her animal companion every couple of levels. The DM has to ask the druid what she wants to do with her Dire Lion when the adventuring party enters a large city, etc.

I like the fact that Pathfinder has provided a second option for animal companions, familiars, and special mounts for those players that simply don't want to deal with the hassle of controlling a second character.

[hogarth]

Moondarq wrote:

I like the fact that Pathfinder has provided a second option for animal companions, familiars, and special mounts for those players that simply don't want to deal with the hassle of controlling a second character.

I think it's great to have something to trade for the animal companion! I just think the Fire Domain is a little bit weak (compared to the Air or Weather domains, say). Of course, I agree that playing a pyro is much more fun than playing an air-head.

>:)

[Vigil]

Another week, another playtest report!

This week, we got started on Fortress of the Stone Giants, only playing through Part One: the Raid on Sandpoint. Hoo boy. That's not an easy scenario to run, what with different attacks popping up all over town. Tough fight, but the heroes prevailed.

Specific observations:

CMB dc's need adjustment. The wizard cast a spell to push a stone giant away from him, and even with a decent bonus, his chance of success (on a higher level spell) was less than 50%. And indeed, he failed to move the giant. To recap, a 10th level wizard, casting a level 4 spell designed to bull-rush creatures away, couldn't affect a CR 8 stone giant half the time.

At the same time, monsters base attack, strength, and size continues to increase. The CR 7 dire bear was easily able to grapple the level 10 dwarf barbarian, and he should be the hardest in this party to grapple.

I know the static DC is meant to speed up combat, but I wonder if going back to opposed rolls would help.

[Pneumonica]

Vigil wrote:

CMB dc's need adjustment. The wizard cast a spell to push a stone giant away from him, and even with a decent bonus, his chance of success (on a higher level spell) was less than 50%. And indeed, he failed to move the giant. To recap, a 10th level wizard, casting a level 4 spell designed to bull-rush creatures away, couldn't affect a CR 8 stone giant half the time.

At the same time, monsters base attack, strength, and size continues to increase. The CR 7 dire bear was easily able to grapple the level 10 dwarf barbarian, and he should be the hardest in this party to grapple.

I know the static DC is meant to speed up combat, but I wonder if going back to opposed rolls would help.

How would it have changed if the base DC was 10+stuff rather than 15+stuff?

[Vigil]

Pneumonica wrote:

How would it have changed if the base DC was 10+stuff rather than 15+stuff?

The giant would have been pushed back (I think the wizard only failed by 3). The dwarf barbarian would still have found himself in a literal bear hug.

[Shisumo]

You can compare the 3.5 equivalents of the characters/monsters/spells to see what would have been different under the old rules?

[James Griffin 877]

hogarth wrote:

I think it's great to have something to trade for the animal companion! I just think the Fire Domain is a little bit weak (compared to the Air or Weather domains, say). Of course, I agree that playing a pyro is much more fun than playing an air-head.

>:)

Nah. Lightning damage has always been my favorite. I mean, even without magic you can control fire to some degree, but pulling down lighting from the heavens or bolts of it shooting from you fingers all Palpatine-style is so much more flavorful to me. Historically, humanity is always really appreciative to the god that controls fire and shares it with them, but you always fearfully worship the god of the storm and lightning. Fire is dangerous but predictable, while lighting is at least as dangerous without as much of the predictability...therefore more terrifying.

(Also, if power-gaming in any fantasy setting, fire is always the most resisted by the monsters that heroes usually fight. Assuming you don't have the option for "force" or "sonic" damage, all the other basic elements are just stronger than fire.)

[Vigil]

Since this is a conversion, I thought I'd share how I'm converting the module over. In general, I'm not. I run the stat blocks as wrtten, with the following modifications:

-CMB as grapple with the new size modifiers.
-extra feats for hit dice, which is usually just one, two or three feats. To make my life easier, I give the enemies toughness, improved initiative, and then a save-boosting feat (iron will, great fortitude, lightning reflexes) in that order.
-skills remain as written. I just assume the math roughly shakes out.

My conversions take me a couple of minutes before the session starts to recalculate hit points and to scan the feats the critters have to note any obvious mechanics changes. Backwards compatibility so far has been pretty well maintained.