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Part One
We play tested Sanctum of a Lost Age. Our Party consisted of five level 7 characters. We used 20 pt builds PFS rules and 23,500gp
First off if you have not played Sanctum of a lost age it was pretty cool. I liked the module/dungeon crawl. It was well written and enjoyable.
In our party we had two front liners a Swashbuckler and a Slayer. The Swashbuckler used an Agile Rapier, and the Slayer used an adamantine Greatsword. We had two archers an inquisitor and a shaman and another Shaman who was more of a blaster.
I will invite the team and DM to add in their thoughts as well. I will share my observations focusing mostly on the Shaman as that is what I played.
Half-Orc Swashbuckler – At this level he did extremely well he seemed to hit very hard and very reliably on his first hit. He was very optimized and it showed. However early on he had a bad string with no crits and no kills so that his panache was not re-filling. However, that changed after the first few fights and his rolls warmed up. This seemed like a very strong class. To me it seemed crazy that they got improved crit for free at 5th level.
Half-Orc Slayer – Our slayer did an all around build. He had no bad stats, power attack and deadly aim so he could switch hit. At this level he had no magic weapons which was problematic in one encounter. However, usually he did enough damage that it didn’t matter too much. He and the Swashbuckler did some good team work to keep things in flank. When he could sneak attack his damage was on par with the swashbuckler. He invested quite a bit in skills and I think if the class had 6 skill points it would have been easier for him to spend less points on his int and charisma. Overall this seems like quite a capable class, as long as they can get the sneak attack in they can do great damage.
Half-Elf Investigator – This class is crazy knowledgeable. Our investigator started with 18 int and spent all her inspirations talents on increasing her skill abilities. She knew everything. She used all her feats for Archery and was an ok archer. We talked a lot about sneak attack and were conflicted if it really worked well as a mechanic for the feel of Investigator. We really felt that she should be using this knowledge to help herself and even others hit harder, more accurately and with precision. It does need something about as damaging as sneak attack but that could come from some kind of monster lore like ability. After identifying a creature you get level to damage and int to attack that creature or type of creature. Make it a move action and then later a swift or free action, something using their highly deductive mind to strike with precision to disable creatures quickly.
Elf Shaman – Lore and Fire the “Blaster” Shaman. This was a pretty effective blaster. He had access to good “hexes” the Mind probe was fun and worked well. As a Druid he also had quite a few battle field control spells. He had very low physical scores but all of his mental scores were quite high. Lore seems really potent for abilities and extremely situational spells. I think it was a pretty successful caster at 7th level.
Human Shaman – Battle and Life the “Archer/healer”. I took battle and life because of their spirit abilities and my role was “healer”. While I didn’t let anyone die I found that cure moderate as a 3rd level spell is awful. So I relied on cure light my 4 channels and archery. What I found is I was stretched too thin ability wise. I wanted to hit with my bow and have some channeling and healing/buffing. It turns out that other than Barkskin there are not a lot of buff spells for druids for other people at low level. No Bless, No Prayer, no Blessing of Fervor. Our whole team missed these kind of spells terribly. I like playing “support casters” and found that I was not enjoying the druid spell list for this role. I also found that now that I had the druid spell list a lot of the Spirit magic spell slots for the more blasty spirits looked more redundant. The only battle spell I used was Wall of fire, while I ended up using all of the life ones at some point including restoration after the fight with the ghost tiger. I was a pretty poor archer even with 18 dex and a +1 bow (+1 str). I really did not like most of the Hexes available and one of them was duplicated between Life and Battle. With not being able to spontaneously cast heal spells I had to pre pare them which after playing clerics and oracles seemed painful. There should be a healing hex that allows you to spontaneously cast some heals as a cleric. In general I felt that the hexes were weaker than a witches and because my primary casting is wisdom that charisma to uses or number of times per day was not as strong as revelations. During the Behir fight and the Necromancer/dire lion fight I was having a problem keeping people alive and ran out of healing spell prepared and channels, the only reason we lived was the battle healing lesser spirit ability or I would have lost the slayer twice. As it is we nearly burned a wand of cure light wounds out of combat for this module I think we used 38 charges. Aqueous Orb from the other shaman saved our life in the necromancer and the flesh golem fight.
At this point in the play test I would really like to see the cleric list re-instated. While I love the battlefield control and damage abilities of the Druid more than the cleric’s list I felt the lack of buff spells and heal spells very keenly. I think however, our blaster/control shaman may disagree as he performed his role a lot better than I did mine. However, this could be fixed with better life spirit abilities and Hexes. Let the greater spirit ability be spontaneously cast cure spells and then I think I would not feel so bad. Also if there were abilities like the lore’s ability to add sorcerer/wizards spells to their list. To add some cleric/wizard something group buffing in that would be good. The druid is awesome at buffing animals and animal companions but we don’t have those. So there is a good portion of the druid spell list that really does not fit us thematically.
Also I did not like that hex uses were based on charisma, the witches are unlimited use (other than once per person). The life spirit channel ability should be 3+ cha or 1+ Wisdom. I felt too MAD to successfully be a “Battle” shaman. I don't think I used a life or battle hex the entire module as I always had better options with spells or shooting my bow.
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Part Two – Tomb of the Iron Medusa
We leveled our guys to 15th level 240,00 gp limit and did the Tomb of the Iron Medusa. We got about halfway through before we ran out of time. We will continue Friday next week or the week after.
Basically the same group, except I traded in my archery feats for more spell casting feats. Spell penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Heighten and I used preferred spell on cure light, Cure Serious and Heal so I would not have to prep so many healing spells. I also pretty much dumped my dex and strength to raise my wisdom and charisma to a focused caster build.
The slayer, swashbuckler and Inquisitor had lower damage output at level 15 in the first few fights due to Incorporeal creatures and elementals. The lack of precision damage was fairly noticeable. However the slayer and Swashbuckler still had power attack damage to fall back on.
Swashbuckler – So far his lack of flight at level 15 has become an issue. Next time we continue we’ll prepare an extra Air walk for him. When he could get into the fight he did pretty well, but suffered from a lack of targets that he could apply precision damage or bleeds to. That was poor planning on our part however, he played well and choose well in most other things. If we had leveled these people up I’m sure he would have had a few potions of fly or something.
Slayer – He had a switch hitter build so he could switch to the bow when flying was needed. He performed extremely well with his bow and had 2 critically timed critical shots against his Quarries. He Used a ring of invisibility, set up his “favored targets and quarries” then went about systematically killing them. Because of the amount of movement involved in some of the initial fights he was making very good use of vital strike and against the strong DR of the elementals it turned out to be a decent tactic. Had we had bless, haste prayer etc.. normal buffs that we are accustomed too he would have rocked these encounters.
Inquisitor – OMG CRAZY skills. She was the smartest character ever. She knew everything that was knowledge related. It was really nice because there was a lot of history, background stuff for the tomb. However, I think it was too much. When she is beating the DC by 15 or 20 points consistently, maybe she didn’t need to start with max INT, and spend all her talents on increasing her skills. While she still did ok damage a lot of that is because she was flying, invisible, echolocation with a holy bow. (Her normal combat/skill rogue does a lot more damage.) Again we felt that all of that knowledge and intuition should be harnessed to kill creatures instead of something as banal as sneak attack. Some form of insight bonus progression that replaced sneak attack but was still precision damage. I think it is a really cool class and I think she had a lot of fun with it. She also became our defacto leader even without any social skills because she understood everything and could guide us to the right places. She really out shone even the Lore shaman on skill checks.
Blaster/Control Shaman – Very effective, the additional sorcerer wizard spells from lore help flush out some of his damage/control areas. Lore seems very strong at this level, flame was not really impressive in its hexes or abilities because we had air walk. He also made good use of preferred spell for Disintegrate and fireball and a few others.
My Shaman – Because I had preferred spell I had a much larger variety of spells so I didn’t need to prep heals. Wealth compensates a lot for short comings at high levels my staff of life has already seen a good amount of use from Remove Blindness. At this level the Druid Spell list has a lot more flexibility for control and damage. However, the healing is still meh. Life sight is only rounds which is far inferior to the revelation of the same name. It was still hard to find appropriate spells or spells that didn’t take up a lot of area. Since I used most of my feats on preferred spell I felt a bit lacking in other things. Again it goes back to there should be an option to spontaneously cast healing spells as the greater spirit power of life it is even worse with the druid spell list as cure mod is 3rd level and mass cure light is 6th.
I didn’t use a hex from life or battle other than life sight a few times. They are just not strong enough to use an action on at this level. As I tanked my physical skills the only useful stuff I had from battle was the lesser spirit healing power. It was really a clutch ability when used with a meta-magic rod of reach spell. It allowed me to spend less time casting healing or channeling so I could do triage just fine.
There was one encounter that was basically walked over due to 3 characters with echolocation, both shamans and the Investigator. While we were all blind, echolocation made it not matter. Creatures that use sunburst and sunbeam make for a lot of blindness.
At this point in the play-test I’m more okay with the druid spell list but I spent 4 feats making it so I could function near to a cleric in healing potency. I never did take extra channel or selective channel. I still wish the life shaman hexes or other hexes gave options to get some spells we don’t have. Greater magic weapon, Blessing of Fervor, Prayer, bless etc. Divine favor, divine power etc for the battle shaman.
I know some people will say if you want to heal well then be a life oracle or cleric. However, as this was a play test this is what I tested. Had the war priest been viable to fill the role I wanted I would have tested that. However, I don’t think it is far enough along in its development.
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Playtest Part 1: Sanctum of a Lost Age
This was a fun dungeon crawl and played the Slayer for this playtest.
Golo, did a good job of explaining the classes in general so I'm going to focus more on the Slayer and how he compared to the others (specifically the Swashbuckler).
First, while the list of skills is actually pretty well rounded the lack of skill points makes it hard to do too much with them. At 7th level I only had a three skills maxed out and that's with a 12 Int (which took ability points away from other things). If the skill points/level were 6/level instead of 4/level that would have helped other things.
I also noticed that this class seems to lend itself heavily toward ranged combat (especially looking at the talents that can be chosen). I had made the character with a 16 STR and 15 DEX though to try out the melee side of things, but to also be able to pull out a bow and be effective with that as well. When I was able to get in sneak attacks I was easily on par with the Swashbuckler for damage. But it should be noted that even at this level the Swashbuckler had 2 or 3 points more AC than I did and an attack bonus that was 3 or 4 points higher because he could focus all of his abilities points on a single ability while mine were spread out a little.
But even so, the Slayer managed to hold it's own. Being able to designate a "Favored Target" as a move action helped keep the damage up, but I think there should be a way (through talents maybe) of increasing the bonus that "Favorite Target" grants.
Overall, compared to the two Shamans, and Investigator and even the Swashbuckler, at this level the Slayer can really hold it's own and be an effective member of a party.
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Playtest Part2: Tomb of the Iron Medusa
So for this part we were level 15 and playing though this event.
I was still trying to keep the character more or less balanced between melee and ranged attacks so that he could cover most situations that came up and I am really happy that I had a ranged weapon for this module (but I'll get to that latter).
One of the first major fights in this module was against 3 huge Fire Elementals and an Effreet. The fire elements were tough because they were immune to ctits, sneak attacks, and other precision based damage and have DR so my Slayer was denied 5d6 points of damage per swing. Thankfully I still had Power Attack to fall back on and I had picked up a few of the Vital Strike Feats so that I could bypass the DR and still do damage.
Later in the dungeon we encountered creatures that blinded 3 of the 5 of our party. My Slayer wasn't blinded and used a Ring of Invisibility to start targeting the creatures with Favored Target and one with a Quarry while putting the sword away and pulling out a bow (these things were flying and out of everyone's melee reach). While I didn't have all the archery feats I did have Deadly Aim and was able to put it to good use in this fight and being able to get even the first shot off with Sneak Attack helped a lot. Compared to the elemental fight it felt like I was doing more damage with a bow even though I was slightly better with a sword.
Finally, one of the last fights we played through was a fight with flying/invisible creatures that stayed out of melee reach. It this fight, it took me 3 or 4 rounds to not only recover from the initial attack and get out of the way of some big ally spells but also to set up the Favored Targets and Quarry before running back in (though a Blade Barrier) and getting a lucky crit at just the right time (with a bow) to drop the BBEG.
Final thoughts on the Slayer class:
While this class seems pretty good there are some tweaks that would make it as good as a base class;
1) The skill points should be increased to 6/level.
2) There should be more talents to help melee versions of this class so that it's not so ranged/archery focused.
3) While there are talents to pick up more feats there should be bonus feats at at least level 5, 10, and 15 to help round out the class, maybe even limit them to combat feats or something similar to the Ranger's Fighting Style ability.
4) A Slayer should be able to designate all of it's Favorite Target's all at once, instead of the one target per move or swift action that it currently is.
5) Slayer's should get the ability of Slayer's Advance sooner and more often than it currently does. Maybe put off the ability to use Stealth as part of that until later but this should be available sooner and more often I think.
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Good points, DK! I whole-heartedly agree with your suggested tweaks.
This is also my impression; Slayer is too archery-oriented now. It works as part of a large group, but it is pretty weak on its own. Too few talents and feats, and it takes time to set up your Favorite Target bonus. If you ask me, FT should work along the lines of inquisitor's Bane/Greater Bane, e.g. +1d6/3 levels or something.
I think ranger/rogue or fighter/rogue is much more versatile and effective as a combatant. As it stands, Slayer is too one-dimensional now.
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Playtest- Sanctum of a Lost Age and Tomb of the Iron Medusa
I got to play the Swashbuckler in this playtest and overall really liked the class. I’ll break down what I thought of all of its abilities in a little bit, but I’ll start with a few observations on the other classes.
Investigator- I liked how this class played out, but there are a few points that I think are a bit lacking. She was able to really be the character that knew everything and that was awesome for story exposition and the puzzle parts of the adventures. I would have liked to see some way for that knowledge to be used in combat, maybe granting a hit and damage bonus to herself or her allies after she identifies a monster or having abilities that can reduce a monster’s special defenses (SR, DR, Resistances etc.).
Shaman- I didn’t feel like there was much special to this class. Both of the players playing shamans did a good job with feat and spell selections to make them effective but it was rare that they pulled out a spirit ability or hex that struck me as unique or flavorful. The life shaman’s cures were certainly powerful, but it felt like he was struggling to be the healer that a cleric can be without thinking. I’m not sure if I have any concrete suggestions at the moment, but I’ll continue to process this and add thoughts to this thread or the shaman thread if I come up with anything.
Slayer- The slayer’s switch hitter tactics served him well and we were often able to set up good combos to let him get his sneak attack running. This felt like a strong class, though his damage was somewhat situational. Given that it takes him a few actions to really key in on an enemy, I feel like he should be able to out damage a fighter by a little bit once he is in the zone (Favored Target on, Quarry on, flanking etc.). As it was it seemed like he needed to get all of his tricks running to keep up with the damage I could do without any special set-up. I also think this class needs some abilities to take down targets without needing an ally to help. The flavor of the class is somewhere between bounty hunter and assassin and while these archetypes certainly can work with others, they can also work alone. Perhaps talents that let you feint as a free action or deny dexterity as part of a Slayer’s Advance or charge or something like that. A higher level ability that let the slayer pounce with sneak attack when using slayer’s advance and favored target would be pretty appealing.
Swashbuckler- I really liked how this class played out. It felt like it hit the theme well and was able to fill an important combat role while still having a good amount of versatility. My build, in broad strokes, was a dex based fighter with an agile weapon and just enough strength to power attack, moderate charisma and low int. I took the weapon focus/specialization tree all the way through greater spec with a rapier, the dazzling display, shatter defenses, deadly stoke tree and then critical mastery and bleeding critical at high level. My only skills were acrobatics and intimidate. I can see how this class could easily be the party face and/or a maneuver master and I like that it has that versatility.
At 7th level I felt like a competent fighter. My damage was solid and always on and it got better when I could add precision. My AC was the highest in the party and I sometimes wished I had the antagonize feat to make myself more of a tank. Unfortunately many of the things we fought were mindless, so I wasn’t able to use intimidate ad much as I’d hoped but I still had plenty to contribute.
15th level was somewhat more frustrating but that was due to decisions I’d made building the character and no fault of the class. The early part of the adventure was investigative and discovering the beginning of the story. A different swashbuckler might have had plenty to do here but I chose not to have any skills in those areas. It wasn’t really a problem, but it left me without much to do. The first fight was against a ghost. Incorporeal meant no precision or bleed damage and undead meant no intimidate. Incorporeal are frustrating for everyone so that was fine and I was able to make good use of parry to keep him from hitting me and applying nasty effects. The next big fight was with elementals and an outsider. The outsider was flying and invisible so I was unable to get to him and the elementals were immune to my precision damage and bleed effects. Not a shining moment for the class but with power attack and a +5 weapon I did just fine. The next two fights were against strictly flying creatures and I’d made the mistake of not buying any gear that let me fly. Additionally, the casters had not prepared any buff spells for this situation so I sat grounded while the GM (wisely) kept his distance from me. That was all of the mod we had time for that night so it left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but again, more due to my lack of preparation than anything wrong with the class. The swashbuckler fills the front line fighter role and at high level, front liners need tricks to overcome these things. Had I leveled up more organically I would have had the necessary items. When we finish the module, I’m going to change my gear somewhat so that I can overcome some of those fighter blind spots.
Here is my take on the class features I got to make use of
Panache- even with a relatively small pool of panache (3 or 4 points), I felt like this balanced well. Having a high crit weapon allowed this to replenish fairly reliably but not so much that I could waste it.
Derring-Do – this isn’t an ability that I used much but I liked having it in the tool box. That extra bonus to swashbuckler skills is nice and one panache doesn’t feel too expensive.
Opportune Parry – I didn’t have combat reflexes but I was still able to make use of this often. Mostly I used it to parry attacks of opportunity when I failed at acrobatics rolls. This is a handy ability and potentially very powerful. Having iterative parries scale down like iterative attacks might make sense (second parry is -5, third is -10 etc).
Riposte – I only used this once (though as I think back I shouldn’t have since I never had an extra AoO) and the panache cost felt very steep. It would be difficult for this to be more than an incidental ability as written because you just run out of panache too quickly.
Recovery – I only used this once but when I did it was very handy. An extra +2 AC at a critical moment or the ability to avoid iterative attacks is useful but the panache cost makes it something to use carefully.
Bravery – Not my favorite ability and one I try to swap out on fighter archetypes but it’s flavorful and helpful for a low will save class. This never came up for me.
Swashbuckler Finesse – The fact that this is like weapon finesse but not weapon finesse is overly complicated in my opinion. It should just be a bonus feat, especially since the feat is required to get into a number of other thematic feats and having to take a feat that mimics an ability you get for free feels like an unnecessary tax.
Nimble – This helped keep my AC high and on par with a heavy armored front line fighter. Good stuff.
Menacing Swordplay – I made as much use of this as I could given the monsters we fought. Being able to intimidate for free should make shatter defenses easier to use but honestly, I never had enough trouble hitting to make it an issue.
Precise Strike – The damage bonus is great and keeps swashbucklers on par with the best damage dealers in the game. There were times when it didn’t work and I felt the loss, but not so much that I felt useless. The ability to double it was nice but never seemed overwhelming. I like this ability.
Swashbuckler Initiative – The bonus to initiative was nice and meant I was often going first. I never took quickdraw so I never used the other half. It second part didn’t seem worth it to me but there might be builds that make good use of it.
Bonus Feats – These are just about right. They are enough to give you a boost and let you chase a few feat trees but not so many as to overshadow a fighter.
Weapon Training – The static to-hit and damage bonuses are nice and it’s nice that they’re named the same as the fighter so fighter items work with them. Improved crit at 5th level is powerful but taking it at 10 is probably too late.
Pommel Strike – I never used it but I like the ability to work in some maneuvers for free
Swift Feint – This was nice, especially with two sneak attackers in the party. There were times when my best action was to set them up and others where I was better off just hitting. I think this is not worth much as written unless you have party members that benefit from it. Making it a standard action means that it’s very difficult to get other feats or abilities to work well with it.
Targeted Strike – I never used this but I often considered it. It’s a nice variety of maneuvers. The fact that I use an attack roll and the opponent gets no save seems very powerful.
Bleeding Wound – I actually took this as my signature deed but never got to use it. Hopefully in the second half of the adventure I’ll be able to get close to something that bleeds since I focused a number of my high level feats around this.
Evasive – Great ability. It’s a little painful having to wait this long for evasion (longer than a ranger!) but getting all three in one shot is nice. I wonder if maybe a scaling ability might make more sense. Something like Uncanny Dodge at 3rd, Evasion at 7th and Improved Uncanny Dodge at 11th.
Subtle Blade – This seems like something that will be ignored until you run into one of those disarm or sunder encounters that come along every so often and then it will be stunning. It never came up for me.
Dizzying Defense – Maybe I used this once. Most of the time I had other things to do with my swift actions and I didn’t need the armor class. Also, full defensive means no attacks of opportunity which means no parry. At 15th level my AC was 35 and my to-hit was +30. The numbers work out about the same defense wise. Full defense is better against many attack, parry against one or two
Perfect Thrust – Never was I tempted to use this. My to-hit was good enough and I had other ways to make them flat footed and overcome DR. Maybe another build would make use of this ability but a full round action for one attack, even one that ignores DR and is almost guaranteed to hit, doesn’t seem like something that will come up very often.
19th and 20th level abilities – I was not high enough level to use these, though they mostly sound fun, useful and thematic. The only one I don’t like is Cheat Death. I like the concept of being too lucky to die, but often at high level, -1 and stable is a much safer place to be than 1 hp and still an active target.
Overall I think this class is well designed and doesn’t need much else to make it better. A few tweaks to some of the abilities will help them feel more polished or useful. Probably my only worry is that, as written, there is little reason to play a dex based fighter other than to stick with the theme. You’ll just as effective as a strength based fighter without having to spend money on an agile weapon. Perhaps the class could get Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat at 2nd level, Dex to damage along with weapon training at 5th and then improved crit as a bonus feat at 6th level.
I had a lot of fun playing this class and it certainly holds its own on the front line. I’m looking forward to seeing the final version and hope that our playtest has been informative.