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**Warning: Mild Spoilers for Age of Ashes: Hellknight Hill**
I attempted to incorporate the Secrets of Magic Playtest into my group's ongoing Age of Ashes campaign. We are currently in Book 1: Hellknight Hill. This is a description of how that attempt went.
I am the group's DM - but I decided to let my players control an extra character during their adventures (first, the Magus, then the Summoner). Due to the short playtest period & some real world "life happens" stuff, I didn't get to do a full playtest (particularly with the Summoner), but I will still offer some commentary on what my group was able to do.
The plan was simple: I re-rolled two NPCs from Book 1 as a Magus & Summoner. For the Magus, I recreated Alak Stagram (the Hellknight Initiate) as a Sustaining Steel Magus & allowed him to join the party for Chapter 3: The Citadel Below. For the Summoner, I re-rolled Warbal Bumblebrasher as a (Primal) Summoner who's "Beast" Eidolon happened to look like the Bear "Big Bumble." The intention was to let Warbal join the group for Chapter 4: Breachill's Secrets.
In both cases, I then would allow one of my players to control that NPC in the corresponding portion of the adventure.
Due to "Life Happens," my group did not get all the way through Chapter 3, so I was only able to playtest the Magus (Alak Stagram), but I did get to at least roll-up a Summoner (Warbal Bumblebrasher) for use.
Here are my observations:
***THE MAGUS (Alak Stagram)***
-Character Creation-
Alak Stagram is normally a Fighter focusing on Two-Handed Weapons, so I rerolled him as a Sustaining Steel Magus. This round of Character Creation was genuinely engaging & enjoyable. I really enjoyed creating Alak as a Magus. I felt like I had interesting options & the process was surprisingly fun! The final result felt appropriate to the character in the story & flowed naturally.
Overall, I feel like Slide Casters are the clearly optimal subclass for Magus, so I did feel like I was taking suboptimal choices when I was making the build, but the build itself felt very appropriate to the character I was creating.
I enjoyed character creation for the Magus more than I thought I would.
-Adventuring w/ the Magus
I gave the Magus to one of my stronger players - but that player has famously said that "magic makes my head hurt" in previous editions of the game. So, I was curious to see how well they would adapt to the Magus.
In the first session, they had a very hard time understanding Spell Strike. However, after a two week "Life Happens" break, when they came back, they didn't have any problem remembering how to use Spell Strike - and they naturally adapted their tactics appropriately.
So, learning curve wise: Magus was definitely harder at first for my player, but after a full session, they were able to retain the information necessary to play the Magus well - even after a pretty significant break.
The party only completed about 65% of Chapter 3 - so I didn't get to see the Magus in play extensively, but I did get to see it some.
The dice hated our poor Magus! The Soulbound Doll almost managed to one shot the Magus with a brutal early critical hit, and that fight caused the party to lose a lot of exploration time retreating to heal & rest.
However, that dramatic bad moment aside, the Magus proved to be a really effective... martial character.
Alak Stagram almost never actually used Spell Strike during the course of the adventure. I think he used it twice, hitting once. In almost every other situation, the optimal tactical choice was normal melee attacks.
The party got swarmed by Boggards & Charau-Kai fairly early. (Let's just say my party is not exactly... "stealthly.") Alak held up well in that fight, but even swarmed by enemies & frequently in close proximity to enemies, the opportunity to really use Spell Strike just didn't come up much.
I feel like some of this was due to the Sustaining Steel Subclass (which really does feel more limited), but I also feel like this may be an issue inherent to the Magus class overall. Even in theoretically ideal circumstances (swarmed by multiple targets), Spell Strike just didn't see much use.
Again, the Magus was definitely effective. It held it's own as a "martial" class. Outside of a freak critical hit from the Soulbound Doll, there was never a moment where the class felt "weak." (And to be clear, that critical was super harsh - almost max damage. It would have nearly KO'd any member of the party.) It also just never had the time to really shine via Spell Strike.
-Overall Thoughts
The Magus was very interesting to build. I had a lot of fun there! This is definitely more engaging to build than the 1e Magus (at least for me personally). There are definitely interesting ideas here.
Play wise, the Magus feels "balanced, but boring." Granted, I didn't get a lot of play - so that observation may be skewed. Mechanically, the Magus was easily on par with the other classes. It neither over-performed or under-performed. It didn't feel unbalancing.
But, the Magus almost never got to use the Spell Strike ability, which is the core of the class & the primary reason you'd want to roll such a character.
That puts me in an awkward spot, because I "want" Spell Strike to be more usable, but the class currently feels "balanced." I'm worried that making Spell Strike more usable would throw things off in overall mechanical balance.
Wish I could have played this a little more & gotten more data. Life Happens.
***THE SUMMONER (Warbal Bumblebrasher)***
So, I had to edit the story a little for this one. In my game, when Warbal lived with her tribe, she used her Summoner Magic to call her Eidolon, a bear known as Big Bumble, to help defend the tribe. The other goblins didn't quite understand her magic & that she wasn't calling a "normal bear."
After she moved into Breachill, the goblin tribe decided they needed a new bear, "Big Bumble the 2nd," and that attempt didn't go so well. Hence, the "bear-icaded" bear in Chapter 3.
With that small story modification completed, I was able to roll up Warbal as a (Primal) Summoner with a Beast Eidolon (Big Bumble).
-Character Creation
Summoner Character Creation was great, until suddenly, it stalled awkwardly. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but it was very noticeable after my experience rolling up the Magus (Alak). I got about 2/3 of the way through creating a Summoner (Warbal), and suddenly the process just - stalled. It's hard to describe beyond, there was just a point where character creation suddenly got so complex that it messed up my progress.
I pushed through it & at the end of the process, I was very happy with the character. I felt like I had (once again) done a good job representing the character I was trying to represent. I got where I needed to go.
But there was a very distinct moment when the process got awkward.
Maybe the moment would vanish if I had more experience creating 2e Summoners (this was my first attempt), but the process definitely wasn't as smooth as it was for creating the Magus.
-Adventuring w/ the Summoner
My party didn't reach this point, so this didn't happen. My party will probably hit Chapter 4 next Friday, but the Playtest will already be over by then.
Sad day. I didn't get to see the original Big Bumble in action...
-Overall Thoughts
First off, I LOVE the concept of Summoners for each of the Spellcasting Traditions! That was a glorious design move. Without even digging into the class, that one mechanical distinction really inspires a lot of character concepts! I have no grounds for judging the mechanical implications of that decision (no actual play), but man, oh man, do I love that concept!
Sudden character creation difficulty spike aside, I liked how Warbal Bumblebrasher turned out when I reimagined her as a Primal Summoner. The process is rocky, and might need a little smoothing out, but I was satisfied with the result.
My group didn't get a chance to use the Summoner, so I can't comment on mechanical balance or how "understandable" it was to my players. I had two different players interesting in controlling Warbal for the adventure, so there was interest there at least. I am planning to still let my players do this when they hit Chapter 4 - it just won't happen in time for the playtest.
My gut reaction to Summoner Mechanics - I don't like the shared pool of resources for the Summoner & Eidolon (e.g.: Hit Points). It "feels" like a downgrade. Again, this is entirely my "gut reaction" (no playtest), but I feel like I'd rather take a Ranger's Animal Companion than a Summmoner's Eidolon.
Also, given that Animal Companions "feel" better than Eidolons, I have to say - Eidolons use up too many of the Summoner's Class Feats. (An Animal Companion would use up a max of 7/11 Class Feats - probably closer to 5/11. Meanwhile, a Summoner can easily use up 9/10 Class Feats, & will probably use at least 8/10 Class Feats on their Eidolon.) In fact, as it currently stands, the Eidolon feels like your actual character, & the Summoner feels like an overglorified meat taxi.
Since Warbal was an existing character in the narrative, she felt reasonably fleshed out, but I feel like a truly new PC Summoner might come across as bland since almost all of their class options lean so heavily on fleshing out their companion (rather than themselves).
*************
I wish my group had more time to actually see these classes in play. Right now, emotionally, I feel like my responses to the playtest classes are going in opposite directions.
For the Magus, I'm hesitant about the class overall, but there's enough interesting stuff that I'm definitely intrigued. I don't know if they can get the balance & actual-play right, but I hope they do!
For the Summoner, I'm excited & really love where they want to take the class, but when I look at the mechanics of the class, I'm really worried that it's not going to hit the mark.
Those are my observations, for what they're worth. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Thanks for the write up! I had similar feelings on the Magus, although I do think our team enjoyed it overall.