I have asked my players to use the alpha classes in my FR campaign in Aglarond. Today was the first combat under which the classes did get to shine and so far, everything seems more fun for the players. Short summary of the characters:
Min Pa - Human VoP Monk lvl 6
L'aeron Suul - Lesser Air Genasi Rogue lvl 6
Sylvana Woodstalker - Wild Elf Druid lvl 5
Badyrion - Lesser Tiefling Wizard 5
Balerion van Arryn - Human Cleric 6
Roland von Weidental - Human Fighter 6 ( Archer )
The combat was against 6 ogres with an advanced attack bonus of +13 and an ogre mage. I had the ogres start up a hillslope, ready to push heavy stones down the path the PC´s were marching up and the ogre mage floating invisibly in the air.
The PCs on their part had already found ogre tracks and had sent the monk and the rogue ahead to scout on either side of the path, acompanied by the druid, who however didn´t have ranks in Stealth. As it happened, all three stealthing PC´s spotted the ogres before they themselves were spotted. The monk and the rogue took the opportunity to get themselves into good positions, while the druid tried to sneak back to warn the other PCs. Unfortunately, she rolled a one on her Stealth check and the Ogres did get a good roll on their Perception checks.
Initiative was rolled and the ogres managed to push the stones down the path before the fighter could get out of the way. I ruled the stones to make a touch attack with a +0 attack bonus, and luckily, the fighter got hit by only one of them for 4d6 of damage.
The monk delayed in his hiding spot for incoming ogres, while the rogue used a ready action for the next ogre coming by. The cleric took out a scroll of Bless and cast it on the four PC´s around him, the druid began to cast Call Lightning. The wizard delayed after the ogres, hoping to get them into a better position for fireball. The fighter began peppering the ogres with his greatbow, hitting for around 14 damage with one shot. Meanwhile, the ogre mage floated into the direction of the four PC´s down the road.
Next round, the ogres began to run down the hill. The first one passed directly by the position of the rogue, who took the opportunity to sneak attack for over 20 damage. The ogre, however, finished his move right there and critically hit with a natural 20 ( followed by a 19 as confirmation roll ) for 31 damage. The other ogres rushed into free positions. At this point, the monk used a ki point for a +4 dodge bonus to AC and moved beside one ogre, hitting with his attack and stunning the ogre, who couldn´t match the DC of 17 with his fortitude save.
The cleric cast a Spiritual Weapon at another ogre 11 damage, and the druid finished her Call Lightning, hitting another ogre for 11 damage, but the ogre managed to save vs. Reflex for half damage.
At this point, the tiefling mage fireballed three ogres, none of which managed to save. Two of them had been hurt already by the monk and the cleric, both of whom subsequently went down. The third ogre survived badly singed, gets downed, however by the fighter with two arrows.
Now, however, the ogre mage landed ( invisible ) behind the the four PCs down the hill and got three of them into his cone of cold for an incredible 42 damage. The cleric managed his save, but the fighter and druid both went down, the fighter at -10 HP and the druid at -4 HP. Luckily, the cleric had prepared Close Wounds from the Spell Compendium, and managed to save the fighter ( after me letting him make a Heal check to determine who was in need of getting the Close Wounds ). The fighter remains standing with 4 HP to his name.
End of round two, three ogres down and three PC´s heavily wounded.
At the beginning of the next round, the Rogue tumbles and then moves away from the ogre who critted him before, moving between two close standing trees, to delay the pursuing ogre and casts Shield ( his Major Magic ). The monk uses a ki point to give himself +20 feet movement and charges the ogre mage, hitting with his attack and managing to stun the ogre mage. The three remaining ogres charge down the slope to get to the four PC´s down the road, the one hurt by the rogue having to navigate around the two trees, because he wouldn´t reach the rogue anyway with a single move, and you cannot charge through squeezed territory. The second one ineffectively charges the monk, while the third one moves towards the downed druid.
The druid is down to -5 HP by this time, but at this moment the cleric uses Channel Positive Energy and brings her back to +2 HP. I let the druid take her action, because she hadn´t done much yet during combat, and she zaps the ogre with another bolt from Call Lightning, which the ogre doesn´t manage to save against this time. The mage comes around the next corner and uses Kelgores Firebolt on a nearby ogre for 20 damage, finishing that one.
The fighter brings the ogre mage down to 5 HP with two more arrows.
The ogre mage is stunned and decides to delay until after the monk, in hopes of still surviving until then.
To make it short, the rest of the ogres and the ogre mage were finished off in short order. All in all, a satisfying encounter, I managed to endanger the PCs and they managed to win without losses.
As far as the revised classes go, my impressions:
- The fighter seems more robust, dealing very respectable damage and being appropiately hard to hit. The player also wanted me to mention how much more fun it is to level now, seeing how every level something good happens.
- The monk used his ki pool very well, although he is of the opinion that this somehow overpowers the monk. Definitely not my impression, but I already look ahead to higher levels, where casters really begin to shine. Also, I haven´t yet challenged him and the group with more continuous encounters, which I´ll definitely do with a good long dungeon, in the near future.
- The druid didn´t shine very much yet and just now got her sixth level, which will begin to mark the real differences between the "old" and "new" druid.
- The wizard likes the Universal school quite much, will PrC though into Incantatrix next level, so he will not benefit from the higher school powers. Oh, well. He´ll have to live with having a bit less of Real Ultimage Power. :P
- The rogue didn´t do that much this combat ( he and the monk really haven´t communicated yet very much on better teamplay ), but the player expressed that now it seems like a really good idea to take the rogue straight for 20 levels.
- The cleric lamented a bit about losing his domain powers ( the normal ones, not the ones from the alpha ), and also having to change out the Domain Spontaneity feat from Complete Divine. He likes Channel Positive Energy very, very much, however.
And that´s it for this week. The next time I get the group into some nice combat encounters, I´ll be back for more. ^^
Nice summary. It is interesting that the player of your monk thought he may be overpowered. It will be interesting to see him progress. Is this an on-going adventure, or a stand alone test?
Nice summary. It is interesting that the player of your monk thought he may be overpowered. It will be interesting to see him progress. Is this an on-going adventure, or a stand alone test?
An on-going campaign, planned to go to level 20 or nearby. I´m planning on sending them on a dungeon crawl somewhen soon, which should show how the classes do if the PC´s have to face various encounters in succession.
I also suspect that the player of the monk will then notice, that his Ki pool is also limited... until now he expressed how much more powerful he has gotten with it. I am looking ahead to the higher levels, when he´ll run into the problems Monks normally face ( bad chances to hit, DR problems ) and am interested if his opinion still stands then.
I should also mention that the PC´s have very high stats, I let them choose if they wanted to roll ( 4d6, seven times, scratch the worst one, three rows of that ) or build with points... after the first three people rolled very well, I decided on 42 points to build, to have some parity in the party. Consequently, I normally throw encounters with a CR of three to four over the party level at them, which they handle without much problems.
I also used the encounter generation rules from the alpha, thus getting 6 ogres and one ogre mage for an APL-4 encounter.
I think the ogres went down too easily, but that is because I had them start too far up the slope and the wizard managed to fireball three of them. Also, the wizard has already an intelligence score of 23 with his Headband of Intellect, so the Reflex DC was 19, almost impossible for the +0 Reflex save of the ogres to manage.
Still, because of the Cone of Cold of the ogre mage, it evenened out in the end. Loot was around 2500 gold, another 2500 in gems and art objects and a Sepulchral Vest ( from the Magic Item Compendium ) and Boots of the Winterland.