A playtest using the From Shore to Sea Module. The setting was switched from Cheliax to Tian Xia.
Players:
Ganryu: Daken* Level 6 Samurai
Bingo: Halfling Level 6 Ninja
Rook: Crane Tengu** Level 5 Alchemist Level 1 Zen Archer
Dean: Human Level 6 Gunslinger
*Daken is a homebrew race that is a half-human/half-dwarf based off of the Mul race from Dark Sun. They gain a +2 to any stat like all human and half-human humanoid races.
**The Crane Tengu variant is found on the Kobold Quarterly website.
The characters were built using 20-point buy.
As far as the characters go I pretty much told the players to go nuts because if something could be broken its better to find out now.
The Gunslinger did his job superbly, dealing good damage for a fighter-type of his level and hitting every single time he shot. However a number of 1's came up and he ended up burning his grit solely on the fixing his gun.
The Ninja worked out very well, using the halfling's usual talents as a rogue only with magical abilities. The ninja actually seemed far better than a standard rogue I would say, however I am not sure I would change anything with it because he didn't make any of the other players seem inferior and the player had a great time with it. Mostly he was able to get sneak attacks in, but the few times he was unable his damage was the lowest in the party. Also interestingly the Ninja had the highest AC in the party, at one point he used total defense and completely withstood an onslaught from 3 gray oozes.
The Samurai.... was the easiest class to break by far. The player gave him a large sized katana and going with Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Furious Focus, and Vital Strike for feats. The player had also maxed out his strength statistic naturally. By a strange twist he always rolled the lowest on Initiative and by then end of the round he would always be able to kill an enemy with one blow, especially since the party had a chance to soften it up. The worst thing was the enlarge person potions... he was a demon in battle. Pretty much everything died before him and he didn't even really need to use any of his Samurai abilities except for By My Honor for save bonuses. The main chink in his armor are his abysmal reflex and will saves, as one of the main enemies in the campaign can cast Dominate Monster I am predicting that the Samurai will end up killing the party or the other way around... either way it will be an interesting test of the classes.
The Alchemist character was there to fill in the missing roles, providing healing and arcane insight while still dishing out damage. Still not a focus of the playtest so not worth going into.
The encounters went very well and the party had fun but they haven't really been in too much peril yet as this module ramps up the difficulty in the third act. Still so far the party's tactics have been pretty straightforward, kill what you can in one round and after that left the samurai clean it up. The samurai really was the unbalancing factor, however I can say that is because of the way he was built and really any of the fighter-types can become just as crazy with their damage. However as far as the samurai goes his challenges are a nice ability as are all the rest, however I do have to agree that the mount wasnt really necessary... it was tethered outside the lighthouse when the tentacles attacked and was killed... and the player forgot that he even had had a mount until a few hours later. That's how much of a non-factor it is, when the player's mount was killed, no one at the table thought about it or cared until hours later. Personally I feel their weapon expertise really does work well enough instead of a mount.
The ninja was definitely a welcome addition to the party, and the player thought that he was a little too overpowered compared to a normal rogue, saying that even lowering their base skill points from 8 to 6 would go a long way towards leveling the playing field.
The gunslinger... I really don't have anything to add. I would allow the class at my table in normal sessions as is.
This was the first session of the game and my initial impressions, the combats have been mostly lower CR and non too telling. When the party gets the chance to finish the module I will post more. Also I am really interested to see what happens between the party if they have to fight their Samurai.. should be very interesting...