Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Alrighty, second playtest with the new classes. The PCs:
Xanthus, half-elf paladin 4
Irena, halfling barbarian 2/fighter 1/cavalier 1
Tarendlon, elf fighter 1/oracle (battle) 3
Gersemi, dwarf fighter 1/cleric 3
As a side note, the cavalier didn't get to be very cavalierly this session. He was mountless, as his mount was killed last session and he had not been able to replace it yet. Also, the player flat-out forgot about his challenge ability. He did use some of his cavalier class skills and his hefty multiclassed Fort save bonus (+12 when raging, pretty good for 4th level), but that was about it. So... this playtest session is really almost all about the oracle.
FIRST ENCOUNTER - The PCs went to an abandoned rock quarry in search of their contact, who had gone to investigate weapons smuggling by cultists of Razmir. Supposedly there was a madwoman who lived out there that they might have been working with. The PCs, assuming that naturally their contact would be overcome and captured whatever he found, hired a boat to take them out to the quarry, which was a wide rocky area at the water's edge, with about a 20' high rocky rim around the edge with about four or five rough-cut ledge/steps (Climb DC 10) carved into the walls at intervals, and a rim of rocks above with a treeline about 10-20 back from the edge.
The PCs arrived and drew the attention of Naanee, the crazy lady, and parleyed with her for a while. At the suggestion of someone in the village they had brought her a picnic with wine and biscuits with jam, which seemed to improve her mood, but she wanted them to tie the basket to a rope so she could haul it up. She got very cranky when the PCs tried to come up to her - they stopped climbing and again soothed her and got a little information about the "masks" who had stored something here and had recently taken it away, and also some cryptic references about a "new husband." One of the PCs went across the quarry and started climbing up again, and soon enough she got good and riled up and combat ensued.
Behold, Naanee the oracle of stone!
She really should've been CN I think, but I lazily forgot to change the alignment entry on her stat block from last week's halfling cavalier, so I just went with it.
ST 6, DX 18, CN 13, IN 10, WS 12, CH 16
AC 20 (+5 armor, +4 Dex, +1 size) (FF 16, T 15)
HP 6d8+6 (33)
Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +8; +2 vs. fear; Immune fatigue
Feats Augment Summoning, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Spell Focus (conjuration)
Skills Acrobatics +11, Climb +5, Diplomacy +7, Heal +5, Knowledge (history) +5, Knowledge (planes) +5, Knowledge (religion) +5, Spellcraft +9, Survival +5
Melee +2 dagger (1d3-2/19-20)
Ranged +10 light crossbow (1d6/19-20)
Combat Gear MW light crossbow w/20 bolts, dagger, +1 chain shirt; Other Gear cloak of resistance +1, scrolls of remove fear, sanctuary (CL1), lesser restoration, remove paralysis, resist energy (CL 3)
Class Abilities Curse—lame (land speed reduced to 15 ft., not slowed by encumbrance; immune to fatigue), revelations (mighty pebble, shard explosion)
Mighty Pebble (Su) 2/day, standard action: hurl pebble (+11 ranged, 20-foot range increment), 3d6+2 damage; adjacent squares take half damage (Ref DC 16 negates).
Shard Explosion (Ex) 2/day, swift action: jagged shards in 10-foot radius for 3d6 damage (Ref DC 16 half) and difficult terrain until next turn.
Spells Known (CL 6th, DC 13+spell level)
0—create water, detect magic, detect poison, guidance, light, mending, purify food & drink
1st—bless, cure light wounds, divine favor, shield, shield of faith
2nd—aid, acid arrow, sound burst
3rd—summon monster III
While the PCs had approached, Naanee had cast shield of faith and aid - the party saw her muttering to herself and making gestures, but Spellcraft rolls failed to figure out what she was doing and the spells had no visible effect, so they weren't sure if she was just being crazy.
Round 1
Tarendlon (PC oracle) has the clouded vision curse and so couldn't see Naanee, but he made a high Perception roll and heard the moaning of the unconscious NPC contact and went to investigate. He won initiative AGAIN (just like last week) but didn't immediately get into the combat.
Naanee went next and began chanting as if in a trance (as in, casting summon monster III).
Irena climbed up and ran past Naanee, not taking an AoO as she went by, perhaps because she wasn't 100% sure the crazy lady was totally hostile, but also he was following Tarendlon to see where he was going.
Xanthus and Gersemi had some trouble climbing up the steps/ledges in their heavy armor.
Round 2
Tarendlon checks on the unconscious guy and finds he's stable but negative, then moves back towards Naanee.
Naanee summons 4 fiendish riding dogs, sending two to block the steps where Xanthus was coming up and two to attack Tardenlon & Irina. She starts casting another summon monster III (was planning a fiendish aurochs to use its trample attack and/or bull rush people off the edge back into the quarry). With boosted STR and flanking (vs. Irena) and high ground (vs. Xanthus), the dogs hit pretty hard damage but fail to trip.
Irena uses Acrobatics to get away from the dogs and close on Naanee, using either a charge attack or a staff sling to hit her; she fails her Concentration check and the summon spell is lost.
Xanthus climbed and attacked one of the dogs with smite evil.
Gersemi climbed.
Round 3
Tarendlon moves up, attacks and misses.
Naanee 5' steps, uses her shard explosion revelation to do good damage, and casts shield (AC now up to 27), while the dogs move in to threaten Tarendlon and Irina. Moves one dog from blocking Xanthus to blocking Irina.
The difficult terrain from the shard explosion prevents 5' steps, and Irena was threatened by 3 dogs and didn't want all of those AoOs, so attacked a dog.
Xanthus kills a dog with smite evil, then climbs up.
Gersemi finishes climbing and advances, drawing longbow.
Round 4
Tarendlon 5' steps out of the difficult terrain and uses a potion of CLW. Rolls a 1 and uses an action point to reroll it, getting a 6 (he had been at like 4 hp).
Naanee steps back again and uses shard explosion (getting 3 party members and one of her dogs), then uses acid arrow on Irina (who has I think a 24 AC). Tarendlon uses immediate action (sudden charge) revelation to move up next to her and threaten her, getting AoO, but misses. Dogs keep threatening and attacking.
Irena 5' steps out of the difficult terrain and hits Naanee with staff sling.
Xanthus moves up to Naanee and misses.
Gersemi advances and shoots again with longbow, misses.
Round 5
Tarendlon attacks and misses (notice a theme?)
Naanee tries to use Acrobatics to avoid AoO but fails vs. one, succeeds vs. the other, and uses sound burst to hit 3 PCs and one of her dogs, stunning the dog and two PCs. More acid damage on Irina.
Irena stunned.
Xanthus attacks and misses. Uses action point to take another attack and misses again.
Gersemi advances (not tripped by dog AoO because of dwarven stability) and does healing burst.
Round 6
Tarendlon stunned.
Naanee throws a mighty pebble revelation at Xanthus, damaging several other PCs. More acid damage on Irina - she would've dropped except for rage hit points.
Irena hits again with staff sling.
Xanthus attacks and might have hit, don't recall for sure.
Gersemi casts hold person - Naanee fails save and is held.
Round 7
Tarendlon was too far away to reach Naanee and/or his charge path was blocked by dogs or something; don't recall which. But, the player suddenly realized he had forgotten to add enlarge person to his spell list (from the Battle focus) and cast that and moved.
The dogs disappeared. Naanee used a full-round action to attempt a new save vs. hold, which succeeded.
Irena spent 5 action points to declare a natural 20 on her next attack roll (failed to confirm) but then threatens Naanee and demands surrender. She seems dubious but willing.
Xanthus doesn't attack but demands she drop her weapon (which she does).
A round passes with 3 of the PCs attempting to get her to surrender but Tarendlon declaring that the 'ecstasy of battle' is upon him and that he MUST slay her. The 3 PCs use aid another to assist Naanee's AC vs. their party member! Naanee readies an action on her turn. When Tarendlon ignores his party members' pleas and tries to attack her she 5' steps and casts sound burst again, stunning no one but dropping Irena from damage. Tarendlon finally hits, taking her from 1 hp to -13 in one blow.
SECOND ENCOUNTER
This one was a lot shorter, a close-quarters fight between three of the party (Xanthus' player had left) and a pair of Razmir cultists - one an acolyte (human warrior 2) and one a "priest" (human ftr1/rogue 2).
The playtest-relevant parts of the fight were the PC oracle's double-roll for initiative, which for the first time FAILED to win him initiative (and wouldn't you know it, he got sneak attacked by the "priest"), and his sudden charge, which enabled him to overrun the priest when he was running away and block him - the priest had earlier overrun Gersemi in order to escape from the room at the inn where the PCs had brought the two Razmirites.
Thoughts:
1. Multiclassing is complicated!
The barbarian/fighter/cavalier forgot to use challenge in the fight vs. Naanee; it might have been dangerous, given the riding dogs and giving up flanking to them, but they got flanking on a copule of occasions anyway. The extra damage would have helped. That stated, this cavalier is actually better at ranged combat than melee - the player only added cavalier as a class to do a bit of playtesting with it - he'll probably dump it and take another level of fighter instead.
The PC also didn't have a mount because his wolf got eaten by Flanary Xigris' alligator last week and the mandatory weeklong mourning period had not passed yet.
So, really, his cavalier level didn't help him at all.
2. Sudden charge
It's maybe a bad name for the ability, since it doesn't let you actually CHARGE per se; however, it is a handy ability. It acts kind of like a free readied action to zoom up to someone who's doing something that provokes AoOs (like spellcasting or ranged attacks), and then BANG.
Also, it turns out to have handy applications when you simply need an extra bit of movement, as in encounter two. Since overrun is a standard action taken as PART of movement, the PC oracle could only move 20 feet with an overrun in the middle of it. Since the bad guy was like 30 feet away, that wouldn't work, but adding the sudden charge gave an extra 20' of move, which gave him the range to do it.
3. When you think Stone Focus, you probably think strength and melee before ranged combat
And yet, here we had a halfling with 6 STR who was a killer with ranged attacks. If she had gotten off the second summons to add a bit more chaff to the battlefield, it might well have been a TPK.
The shard explosion ability was particularly nice, since as a swift action she could use it and another ranged attack (like acid arrow) or area attack (like sound burst or mighty pebble) in the same round.
4. Action points do make a difference
I use a system similar to the Unearthed Arcana/Eberron AP rules, but there are some things you can do that cost more than 1 AP (like the aforementioned declaring a natural 20 on an attack roll for 5 AP). Some of the AP expenditures ended up creating little benefit, but two uses led directly to hits, which was a big issue when the target had such a high AC that the PCs were having a very hard time hitting. When you're right on the edge of being able to succeed, using APs can be enough to push you over the edge to success.
5. Maneuvers are your friend, but...
True, the obvious 'solution' to the combat would have been to try to run up and grapple Naanee and prevent her spellcasting, but the difficult terrain (both the climbing and terrain that led to party separation, plus the shard explosion revelation) made it hard to close without giving up a bunch of AoOs. Also, it took a while into the battle to realize that she was going to be so hard to hit (abetted by the fact that she cast shield DURING the battle, so an attack that hit her at first vs. AC 24 would miss her AC later).
In retrospect, it actually would have been to her advantage to keep one of her shard explosions in reserve in case she did get grappled, since it requires no physical action to use. I also should've given her ranks of Escape Artist, cuz her DEX was good, whereas she would have had no shot to escape a grapple with CMB.
Also, had she been grappled, she could've had all summoned monsters focus their attacks on the grappler (denied his DEX bonus), so it's not like grappling her would've been an auto-win strategy. Certainly a GOOD strategy, but not the only one that could work.
And, a couple of rules questions that came up:
1. Running in the woods?
An interesting question: can you use the Run action in woods. A run needs to be in a straight line, but what do you do about trees? There was not sufficient undergrowth to make difficult terrain in the trees above the quarry, but there were, yknow, TREES.
In the end, I went with the path of easy and just said "sure, I'll let you run."
Now after he cast enlarge person I think I disallowed a run or charge through the threes, or I probably shouldn't have even if I didn't. Don't recall for sure now.
2. When do AoOs reset for the round?
This question came up. I've always run it where your AoOs reset at the beginning of YOUR turn; thus the 1/round limit applies from your current turn until right before your next turn. One of the players, new to my group, said he had always played it as... I guess I'd call them calendar rounds. Once through the initiative order, top to bottom, is a round, like in the olden days, or like in the recap above. We looked in the book and it was a little ambiguous, but I think we went ahead and played it my way.
3. When do summoned creatures act?
Sure, the first time they appear at the conclusion of your spell they can act immediately, and you still get your whole turn.
But for the remainder of their existence, do they act before you? After you? Can you mix and match when they act? For a spellcaster, it can be convenient to have the animals move either before you or after you to make sure they are inside (or outside) a spell's area of effect. Is there a hard and fast rule on when summoned creatures go?