[Warning: Very TL;DR post. Will be updated as more sessions occur.]
Ninja Playtest, actual play. (More Sessions to Come)
So my DM has been singing the praises of the Kingmaker game that he's currently a player in for some time. I'm a mild veteran of pathfinder (first time poster though, hello to you!) and I really enjoy the system and the setting. After weeks of hearing him talk about the Kingmaker game and many of my recent attempts at getting a long running rpg campaign going falling flat in recent months, he decided to host the game. Now he's been a long time ST who's homebrewed quite a bit in the past, and he's gathered a bit of a reputation in local circles as a 'great to excellent' DM in the past.
So he decided to host up a kingmaker game for 6 of us. (probably for a 7th or 8th later as well, uncertain as to the details there though). I'm a longtime rogue player who also enjoys the occasional foray into barbarian play, so I was sort of intrigued when I read his playtest copy of Ultimate combat and read about the Ninja alternate class for the rogue. Our DM gave us the instructions of the 20 point buy system and we got to character creation.
Here's a breakdown of the party:
Cleric: Mildly experienced Pathfinder player. Domains: Trickery and Healing. No specified diety (that I know of) Positive energy, vaguely neutral (I think) character. Female player, Female character.
Oracle (or Summoner?), has never played pathfinder before and I don't believe has any recent d20 experience. She takes an ambitious character though, playing a child concept and even taking the penalty. Her character is definitely an evil alignment of some sort as well, but I'm not quite certain which alignment exactly. She summons demons. She's also the daughter of cleric's character. Apparently she has red hair but the cleric does not. I don't know what's going on here, but she's turned out to be a great roleplayer already and her whole spiel is about how her demons appear to be her imaginary friends at first glance until you see them in action. The concept works very well. Female player, female character.
Barbarian. Player is not very experienced with d20 and has not played Pathfinder before. He's shooting for a Rage Prophet that in his words is a 'Khal Drogo shaman' (if you're familiar with Game of Thrones). Chaotic Neutral?. Male player, male character.
Gnome Wizard, played by a d20 (particularly 4th ed and 3.5) who has not had experience before with pathfinder, but knows d20 fairly well. He's also been a previous DM for a string of years. Very snobby sort of scribe character, but his abrasiveness is endearing. I believe he's Lawful Neutral. Male player, male character.
Bard: With a self-described 'death metal bard', who summons an instrument that slowly begins to lead him down a dark path the longer a fight goes on. His character is set up as one of our mass crowd control characters and many of us have the sneaking suspicion that if he fails his will save at some point, we'll have to kill him. He's Chaotic Evil. Male player, male character.
Myself. Half Elf Ninja. Male player, female character. True Neutral follower of Norgorber.
I originally planned for the character to follow Pharasma and even went far down this path in my initial story that I handed my DM, but after finding out that the Oracle was going to build towards necromancy, and knowing I might already have to kill our bard, I changed to a more necromancer friendly diety. My stat spread was 14 Str (bumped to 16 with racial boost), 16 Dex, 16 charisma, 10 intelligence, 9 constitution, and 7 wisdom. It's a risky build, but I have a bit of experience with rogue builds and know how to keep myself alive.
And with this, we got rolling.
Our initial scene was of the gnome characte reading the exploration charter that our DM had handed him. His mild nerdly brittish accent made it giggleworthy. We then hopped into the caravan ready to go to Oleg's Trading Post, the outpost we were to meet up at to begin our exploration.
In the caravan, we did our standard 'appearance/name' introductions. I introduced my character, Rose Shortall as 'Rose the Short' (a deliberately contrary name considering she's the tallest member of the party, and is related to her backstory as a half elf), a raven haired, cloaked figure (I know, how cliché). She has 2 Katanas, and I plan on eventually going the DW route with her. (Super Cliche) The Shortalls were an offshoot of the Surtovas, so I marked down the bastard trait.
So we arrive at the Trading Post, and I can already tell that our DM has begun homebrewing even the basics of the Kingmaker chronicle (unless Paizo is really this risque). We come upon the outpost while it's in the middle of an attack by a set of 4 bandits. A round of perception and 2 of us realize it. (The child and the gnome). Eventually we venture deeper into the outpost and see a struggle going on to our left.. with Oleg himself being brutally attacked by 2 bandits. During the surprise round, I draw my weapon, and I'm given another perception check, which leads me (and only me) to believe that there's another struggle going on to the northeast of the post as well. I signal my allies that there's something going on to the northeast as well by directing my hand in the air.
The Barbarian and Gnome split to the left to handle the immediate and visable threat. The Barbarian charges right up to the door and lets loose the dogs of war on the first bandit, while myself and the Oracle make our way Northeast. The cleric takes a middling position, as well as the bard.
At the Northeast building, I find a bandit waiting outside of a closed door room.. with the sounds of screams inside. I head up to the bandit and stealthily sneak attack him for.. his entire hp pool to knock him bleeding. I've got the feeling that Rose is about to witness a rape in progress and prepare myself mentally for how my character will react.
Back to the west side, The barbarian cuts down the first guy and intimidates the second one into surrender. He then heads up my way with his lightning quick speed.
Back to me, the cleric and the oracle make their way to me and the oracle still remains rather passive to the conflict, with the exception of the occasional comment on my swordplay.
I throw open the door and see the scene I expect to see, with Svetlana being taken advantage of by a random bandit. I tell the bandit politely, calmly, that I will cut his balls off if he doesn't surrender and convince my GM that it's a diplomacy check by my phrasing. I pass and he surrenders as well, right as the barbarian bounds up past the cleric and oracle and strangles the dude to death. We unceremoniously put the other, dying one to death and my character begins to drag the two bodies in her hands to the outside to begin spiking their heads. I have Rose only show mild approval/mild disdain with the barbarian because she wanted to interrogate the guy, but conflicted as she wanted to see the rapist get his just rewards too and on some level it was satisfying to her to have him die on his knees like that.
So Oleg then talks to the rest of my party while Rose rifles through the two corpses and spikes the head on the posts of the trading post. Interestingly enough, Oleg follows outside after he realizes 2 of the corpses are missing because he wanted the bastards headspiked himself and talked to the rest of my party about doing so, while Rose was already doing exactly that. Rose likes jewelry and looked specifically for any to take from them but there wasn't any to have, so she simply takes the clothes for later use in disguising, and brings the rest of the loot (with an approving Oleg in tow to assist)
During this time, the Barbarian and the Child oracle, along with assistance from the Bard and Gnome begin interrogating the still living west end bandit, until the Barbarian eventually grows tired of his useless answers and just kills him too.
Oleg informs us that more bandits are to come tomorrow, to collect their weekly 'taxes' from him and he'd love if we'd lend some assistance. He says that apparently one of the bandits that might come is apparently a higher up in the bandits and that it will be a bit tougher than the measly fight we just encountered. He also mentions a Stag Lord of some sort and the gnome takes sharp note of this. (I admit I missed it the first time.)
So we decide to set up an ambush for tomorrow's company and the gnome works out an illusion of Oleg, which will be followed up by the illusion of a steel wall, quartered by a caravan, the stables, and another nearby building. The plan is for myself and the Barbarian to ambush them then, and the Bard to begin to fascinate them as well. The gnome (and his sparkling 18 intelligence) masterminds the plan. We set up, only to realize that the Bard is just horrible at stealth, until Rose (my character) convinces him to take a position in the barn with the barbarian and her with the gentle words of 'sugar, you're terrible at this, come inside to the barn.'
I score a 20 on my initiative and the Barbarian is a step behind me, so i decide to ready my charge action against the guy that appears to be the leader and wait for the Barbarian to take first action to draw attention away from me.
So the Bandits come riding into the Trading post, and see the illusory copy of Oleg, standing by one of the northwest buildings, so they come over past the card to say hello, and of course, I mean, take a swing at him. 2 of his buddies stay south to check the cart (as planned), and the one bandit holding the 2 pack horses stays to the right of the cart, reading the horses to get hitched to it.
So the 'leader' and his 2 cronies with him, (making a total of 6 bandits) sort of are stunned by the illusion for a second, as the 'leader' apparently makes the will save to disbelieve and the other two just sit there stunned by the illusion of Oleg as he disappears and the Gnome sets up an illusionary wall to block in the 3 of them. That's when The Barbarian and I come charging in. The Barbarian whiffs on his target, and I nearly critical the leader, rolling damage I come up with a ridiculous total of 21. (10 on the sword, 6 on the sneak attack, 2 for my bastard noble bloodline, and 3 for my strength modifier). My DM says I easily knock him below 0 hp with one cut of my blade, and I describe the action. Rose strikes from the shadows, and catches the confused leader by surprise and then perform an elegant Moulinet, relieving the man of his stomach and much of his upper torso.
The Bard then switches to a combat song and the Oracle summons a ghost sound to frighten the horses with the horseman by the supply cart. The cleric rushes over to the fallen 'leader' (we were scared I might have killed the poor guy in one hit) and she stabalizes him for later interrogation.
The Barbarian takes a swing at the nearby lackey of the initial trio and he fails to make contact. Rose finishes the job, taking a 5 foot step and slicing the man's head off. (3 one shots in one session for me at this point and I'm feeling pumped, so I already know what my next action is and it's going to be ballsy)
The Oracle, meanwhile, summons up a demon to appear right behind the horse handler bandit, who quickly incapacitates him with some help from her mom the cleric. Little tyke's already summoning up demons and whipping some bandit butt.. she must be so proud.
Anyway, back to the Gnome, who's been acting last this entire time and brings his can of miracle grow to the party, juicing the Barbarian with a bit of Enlarge Mojo, as he towers over the cart. This proves to be a fine idea in theory, but in practice, the 2 'cart checking' bandits who were previously blocked by the illusionary wall can now fire their bows at the giant barbarian who towers over it.
But the Barbarian being big is awesome for him because it's immediately his turn. He swings at one of the two for a nice pile of 6 damage, and then it's my turn. Rose pulls off a stunning display of acrobatics, leaping over both the towering barbarian and the cart, only to land right behind the bandits and plunge her sword into one of them. (nearly a critical success on my acrobatics check and an equally awesome attack and damage roll.
The cleric and the oracle make their way around the cart for their actions as the Bard continues the song. (Seriously.. white gnomes can't jump yo)
The two remaining bandits take pot shots and the Barbarian, and one of them criticals on him, and our DM pulls off a card from the crit deck, then tells the Barbarian that his arm has a nasty gash on it that means his strength has been reduced by 2.
So the Barbarian is hurting now, after taking 8 damage in a single round, more than half his health. He tries to swing at one of the bandits and finishes one of them off.. which forces the final bandit into a morale panic. I try and take a shot at him but I land one of my rare (and I believe only) miss of the night.
The cleric easily patches up the Barbarian's wound on her action.
On the bandit's action, he tries to run away but he makes the mistake of trying to disengage through 2 of my threatened spaces and my character takes an attack of opportunity, which makes a fine dent in his torso to finish him off. We collect the loot (and Rose adds to her clothing for her future disguise collection). The Wizard mage hands himself the Stag amulet and appraises it. He wants to use it for scrying, and I'd like to add it to my disguise kit for later. We decide that both can happen, but he takes possession of it for now. Rose is satisfied as long as he doesn't sell it.
That concluded our first session and I don't have a ton of playtest relevant thoughts. (more to come as I have more sessions) So far the Ninja is playing identical to the rogue, but that's to be expected considering the nature of the class so far and that I'm still only a level 1 character. Hopefully when I reach second level I can make a bit more.. divergent comparisons to the rogue.
Some initial impressions so far though: The Bastard Sword template for a Katana really changes up the game. Having access to d10 worth of damage in addition to sneak attack, the Surtova Bastard bloodline trait, and a decent strength score means that a Ninja can lay down even more impressive damage than the already high initial damage range of a rogue.
Part of this is our money limit, which was artificially boosted to 250gp before play began by our GM, allowing me to easily afford a Katana, although I'd probably be able to afford one anyway without the money boost as it's only 35gp. Having access to a proficient Bastard Sword at level 1 is a bit of a bump up from the D8 max on the melee weapons a pre-feat rogue can wield.
I don't have any specific suggestions on if this is a bit strong or what have you, but I'm more inclined to believe it's 'just right'. I wouldn't want it bumped up to an Elven Curve Blade for example though, as the threat range is just too easy to hit with that one. I don't think the game would suffer too much though if the Bastard Sword Template was maintained for the Katana as I could have easily taken 'ancestral weapon' as a trait and just played a rogue with an Elven Curve Blade for basically slightly better/identical results, but Bastard Swords are relatively cheap and childishly easy to dual wield once you have proficiency. That's more of a general comment about Bastard Swords, but I'm sort of partial to them to begin with, so that's to be expected.
Anyway, next session is up in the air, but tentatively scheduled for next wednesday. Apologies if my writing was overtly detailed or too dry.
