This weekend I was able to meet with my group (with whom I had planned an internet campaign) and we kicked off CotCT in grand fashion. Of course, we also wanted to give a good playtest for the alpha rules in the meantime. So, first I will first give a quick overview of the characters, give a bit of narrative focusing on the rules changes, and then give a final report at the end, including a few suggestions that we think might work.
Spoiled to keep your screen from bleeding.
For the purposes of this playtest, none of the NPCs or monsters have been altered under the rules. Next session everyone will have levels and feats in the Pathfinder style.
The PCs stormed the fishery with theme music playing and very little resistance. This I believe was an intentional design, as it’s good to give a PC a cakewalk for their first encounter. However, the extra hit points (we used the racial bonus) did come in handy. Giggles hurt the wizard enough that without the extra hp he would have been out, ditto the rogue. The cleric later healed them with a turn attempt, but I personally feel that more staying power at first level is a good thing.
The henchmonkeys above disposed of; the PCs started looking to get down. The shark sure made them nervous. Interestingly, gnomes are no longer restricted to burrowing animals to talk to, so they made a deal and distracted the shark with Hookshanks’ body. Once the party had made their way to the underpier the shark promptly forgot the deal, but no one fell in the water after that.
The fight with ol’ Gaedren Lamm was complicated by poor PC tactics. The wizard enlarged the crusader outside the door, on the underpier itself. It fell through and cut the spellcasters out of the fight, neither one wanted to jump the hole with strengths of 8 and no ranks. The command spell ended a hostage situation, but most interestingly, the crusader got in a fight with Gobblegut in the meantime. The gator got max damage, which would have knocked him out without the bonus hp. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 3 saves due to the extra hp. This also got to be our first experience with grappling in Pathfinder.
Disclaimer: I was one of the few DMs who could actually remember the grapple rules from memory. Running Age of Worms for a year will do that to you. Interestingly, the first victim of the flattened size rules was a PC, not a monster, but whatever. In short, the rules are much more simple, although it felt odd not doing opposed rolls. I really really like making grappled people have the grappled condition. I’m not sure about the flattened size modifiers. On the one hand it makes high level grappling less degenerate, but on the other hand, it costs certain monsters their biggest trump card. Whatever the case at high levels, here there is no real issue. The grapple only lasted one round, and an enlarged crusader is a force to be reckoned with.
The Transmuter had taken this as his first opportunity to choose Divination as a banned school, and is finding that it is a pain in the ass. Without Zellara’s Harrow Deck the PCs would never be able to identify stuff, as the Beguiler forgot to take appraise. Of course, he can take it next level, the new skill system encourages it. Still, it’s good to know that you don’t get a real advantage keeping yourself out of divination, even though it’s probably combat optimal.
The next actual combat occurred at All the World’s Meat. Unfortunately I have little data for you as everyone in the building was subdued by 2 color sprays and a sleep. Poor warriors and their negative will saves. However, the Raktavarna is even cooler under the new identify. Using the Harrow Deck over and over eventually revealed a 19, high enough that continued failures to identify mean a caster level of 24 on the thing. I was amused, and my PCs are keeping the knife.
Knifesies games provided more opportunities to play with CMB. One PC won initiative, and tossed the knife across the room. They then used the grapple rules to try to heave one another around. The crusader won handily again, so we don’t have too much to play with. Perhaps the static DC removes some of the drama that the opposed roll creates. At this point, maxing grapple may be even stronger than it was in normal 3.5. Still too early to see, and hard to test without building a dedicated grappler. The rogue lost initiative and ended up trying to disarm her opponent. He we find that the static DC speeds things up immensely, and we like the duct tape fix on how to make disarming a 2 handed weapon harder without making 2 handed weapons just plain better than (say) rapiers. All in all, a success.
We stopped just short of the shingles chase, so there will be more skill commentary next time. I will also start converting NPCs. Except Trinia I guess.
So: in short we like most of the new changes. The extra hp keep folks ticking when the DM rolls a fatal 20 at first level, which is absolutely a good thing in our campaign. Your mileage may vary. The CMB seems a little awkward for grappling, but I am one of the rare few who had a good grasp of the earlier grapple rules. The CMB is great for disarming. Cover looks like far too much work for a few minuses on the attack roll. I just eyeballed and gave the normal -4 or -2 to keep from slowing down too much.
There are just a few notable problems with the classes. It seems that one of the goals for a few class rewrites was to create incentives for those who choose to stick with a base class, rather than a prestige class. This is fine, but there may be more work to do. Sorcerers still lack a good reason to stay. The flavor is delicious, but the powers and feats gained are pretty minor. Indeed, for most bloodlines the PC can take the three best feats, and then bail on the class without any real problem.
The fighter was actually weakened by combat feats. The true advantage of a fighter is that they get a pile of feats, most of which are combat feats now. The problem is, you can only use 1 combat feat at a time. So you can’t spring attack, power attack, overhand chop, and dodge at the same time. Thus a fighter gets to use exactly as much as a rogue does. Sad. What if the fighter gets to use more combat feats in a round as a class feature? It would encourage more levels of fighter, which is always a good thing. Plus, there could be a few more combat feats that only work when combined with other combat feats in a round, creating a special “only fighters can do this” thing. I dunno, just a thought.
So far, the changes have been favorable. Next time out we will hit the Shingles, so there will certainly be a bit more skill commentary. At the moment we haven’t had much sign of the changes. Although one PC really digs the +3 thing.
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This weekend I was able to meet with my group (with whom I had planned an internet campaign) and we kicked off CotCT in grand fashion.
Very cool, thanks for sharing.
As for the non Pathfinder classes, you are allowing them to level up as the rules say, with a feat every other level and the added 1st level hit points and revised skill list and points, correct? How'd that work, smooth or bumpy?
-DM Jeff
As for the non Pathfinder classes, you are allowing them to level up as the rules say, with a feat every other level and the added 1st level hit points and revised skill list and points, correct? How'd that work, smooth or bumpy?-DM Jeff
Huh. Must have missed the bit about more feats. Still thought they were every third level.
I used the bonus hit points to start, even the crusader needed it. I still used the condensed skills, generally if a part of the condensed skill was a class skill, it was here too. Martial lore did not condense with anything. It was very smooth all told.
I've put in a rule that non-pathfinder classes will not have their hit die change to match their BAB. Duskblades still get a d8, for example. It worked out very well altogether.