4 Vigilantes vs. Hollow's last hope

[Dilvias]

We went through Hollow's last hope this afternoon to playtest the Vigilante class. We had four vigilantes, each taking one of the types (Avenger, Stalker, Warlock, Zealot). It... didn't go well.

Characters:

We went with the same array for convience: 14, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10, and all humans (3 brothers and a sister). Avenger had a 16 str, Stalker had a 16 dex, Warlock had a 16 int and Zealot had a 16 Cha. Everyone took the teamwork feat stealth synergy. Other feats were EWP: Falcata (Avenger), Weapon Finesse (Stalker), Point blank shot (Warlock, who was also the archer), and weapon focus: longsword (Zealot, who couldn't think of any other feat for her). Skills and equipment were obvious (3 chain shirts with studded leather for the warlock, along with heavy shields for all but the warlock.) Their social identity was 4 aristocrats travelling.

The Adventure

In Town:

The characters pretty much rolled over the social part, easily dealing with the herbalist and the lumber camp. This, however, was not due to either dual identity or social grace, but the fact that all 4 characters had good diplomacy, bluff, percpetion and sense motive skills. Dual identity didn't matter in the least, since the town didn't care who the characters were, and social grace doesn't really kick in until 2nd level.

In the Wilderness:

Grung was easily taken care of, due to the fact that the warlock both spotted the hobgolbin and then critted him with his longbow before he reacted. The crows fell quickly.

The Tatzlwyrm was harder, with everyone rolling lousy (including the wyrm). It took 5 rounds, but it finally went down. They found the moss easily and the treasure (due to having good perception rolls)

The witches hut was kinda rough. The cauldron swallowed the stalker, who was knocked silly inside, and it was hard to break through the hardness of the cauldron, but again searching the hut was trivial.

The Fortress:

They reached it in daylight, so the party didn't encounter the outside wolves. They found the body and got the loot in the courtyard. They investigated the tower, easily dispatching the giant spider (where the stalker exchanged his rapier for the masterwork shortsword). They searched both the waiting room and cloak room (finding the mushroom) and then went into the desecrated shrine. It wasn't too bad a fight, although the stalke got injured and the zealot used a cure light to get him healthy. Then they went straight into the wolves den.

Round 1, wolves when initiative but no surprise round: Rolls well, and drops the zealot before anyone can act. Players miss.
Round 2, one of the wolves hit and trip the warlock, knocking him down. When he tries to get up, 2 Attack of opportunties drop him. players miss (dice are not going well for the players)
Round 3, both wolves miss, stalker gets a hit, but doesn't do a lot of damage.
Round 4, stalker is hit and tripped, tries to attack from the ground but misses, as does the avenger.
End of 4, I decide that Greypelt would be attracted by all the noise, and joins the party.
Round 5, stalker is finished off, avenger misses
Round 6, avenger is finished off.
TPK.

Comments:
While the TPK was bad, it was more the fault of the dice than anything else. (The avenger never rolled better than a 8 the entire fight.) The warlock never cast a spell, since wearing armor and fighting with a bow was far more effective at this level, and stealth synergy didn't do much for this adventure. Granted, this was a pretty straightforward adventure with not a lot of stealth opportunities (Hard to be stealthy when opening doors.) Better builds might have helped (3 of the 4 players going sword and shield, everyone taking stealth synergy, no stat higher than 16), but I don't think it would have helped that much.

On the class: The class desperately needs something useful at first level. Everything they did could have been done much better by a pair of slayers, a bard and an inquisitor. Also, why does arcane training get to cast 2 spells at first level (not counting stats) while divine training only casts 1 spell at first level?

For warlock, please, please, please remove the level restriction from mystic bolt? The warlock was looking at where he wanted to go if he advanced and we played again, and the fact that at 4th he would have had to choose between mystic bolt (which he really wanted) and Arcane training 2 (which gives him 2nd level spells) made him very sad.

We may try again at a higher level but so far the players were underwhelmed by the Vigilante.

[Mark Seifter]

Thanks so much for running the first playtest; rock on you guys!

As you correctly surmise, at 1st level, lots of things depend on the dice and the starting stats and spells (for instance, a commoner with an 18 Strength two-handing a weapon is more dangerous in melee than most 1st-level characters with 16 Strength due to the rounding on 1-1/2 damage, and 1st-level arcane spellcasters without a very focused build have nasty tricks like color spray, but if they don't use them, they might be mostly on crossbow duty, or longbow in this case), so we're hoping to have some playtests at higher level too to see what happens then.

[Barachiel Shina]

Yes, try a 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th playtest with feedback. That'll help them more.