| Jerry Wright 307 |
The last time I ran the playtest, I DMed, and didn't get much impression of the pregens. But this weekend, a friend of mine ran his take on the playtest (in different parts of the Caves), and I got to play two of the characters, since we only had four players and the Dm wanted to see all of the pre-gens in action.
The overwhelming need for real character creation rules aside, it was interesting playing the cleric of Pelor, with his heavy armor that served little purpose since he wasn't much of a melee fighter, and playing the fighter, since I hardly ever run dwarves.
I named the cleric "Albert the Myopic", which unfortunately turned out to be a prophetic name, since I only hit with his radiant lance twice in the entire game session. I used it a lot, but I just couldn't roll decently. There were jokes about smoking holes in the walls of the cave system, and "only Imperial Storm Troopers are so precise".
The fighter was also fun. "Helga of the Hills", a short blonde bimbo (Int 8) with too may curves. The only problem I had was that I kept forgetting about the reaper feat; I only remembered it near the end of the session.
We waltzed through the goblins quite nicely, but an ogre proved bit of a challenge, and the dwarven cleric took too many bonks on the head from the tree-trunk the ogre called a club.
As he lay below zero (and predictably failing DC 10 Con saves, since he was the one with healing word), Helga chopped at the ogre while the wizard lobbed magic missiles and the halfling slung devastating sling stones (cannon balls, those must be, at 1d8+3!). The scene was dramatically lit by a continuous barrage of radiant lance attacks on the walls, floor, and ceiling.... I doubt the ogre even knew Albert was trying to kill him.
In the end, it was as the ogre turned to flee with 2 remaining hit points after a mighty miss by Helga's axe that I remembered the reaper feat. The ogre dropped, and a quick cure light saved the fallen.
It felt a little like cheating, but d%#& it, he nearly took out the only guy in the party Helga thought was decent-looking! :D