| Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind |
I converted the Ashen Ossuary dungeon from the Doomsday Dawn playtest to final 2e rules and played through that with an inventor, gunslinger, fighter, and bard. So, there are some Doomsday Dawn spoilers in the hidden section.
The Gunslinger results for this playtest are posted here.
I started the characters at 1st level and leveled them up halfway through to get more feat testing out of them. The inventor (named Tony Sparks) was a versatile human (I chose the Toughness feat) with the noble background, the Armor innovation, the Metallic Reactance (acid/electricity resistance) modification, the Explosive Leap feat, the Tamper feat (taken with Natural Ambition), and he wielded a steel shield and bastard sword.
I played this using the Unstable trait rules as written, unaware at the time that this rule will be changed (to what, I still don't know).
Str 16
Dex 12
Con 10
Int 18
Wis 10
Cha 12
ARMOR: I love the thematics of the armor innovation, who doesn't want to be Iron Man? The modifications are mechanically good and give the armor some identity, but aren't particularly flavorful or memorable. The acid resistance did come in handy against the sewer slime Slimy Cistern though. I'm surprised that there was no choice in armor beside a one-size-fits-all medium, this essentially made the choice for me to invest in Strength; something to delineate a heavy tank-style suit from a light, speedy suit would be more interesting to me.
EXPLOSION: this is fun. I used it a couple of times when I had an opportunity to run into the middle of a group of minions. Even in these cases, the damage output almost didn't feel worth using up my free unstable use. An option to channel the explosion into a cone would have been useful.
OVERDRIVE: I LOVE IT! I used it in every encounter, sometimes after a round or two into combat (it depended on what the situation called for). I recall a failed attempt to activate it, but I wasn't frustrated because I still had two actions left for my turn. I like that it isn't automatic, it feels more involved, like I'm doing the mechanical tinkering in real-time. I had two regular successes activating it and one critical success, which was super fun and exciting.
EXPLOSIVE LEAP: I took this as a thematic choice more than anything, but I actually found it quite useful a couple of times. It was also extremely fun accompanied by the Iron Man theme song playing in my head.
TAMPER: I used this once (and failed), I thought I'd use it more than I did due to the absence of a multiple attack penalty, I like it. I don't think I ended up using it much because I opted to Raise a Shield instead. In hindsight, it's unclear if this feat would require a free hand... It doesn't say it does... Please clarify that in the final version.
The party beat the living snot out of the sewer slime, the goblins in the ossuary, the centipedes, and the quasits. They hardly broke a sweat, they were a formidable team. I raised them to level 2 for the rest of the dungeon. Thematically, I wanted to take the Transform Armor feat more than anything, but it wouldn't have served any purpose whatsoever since I suffered no armor check penalty and didn't expect to be ambushed in the middle of the night. So I opted for a feat I could actually test, which was Searing Restoration.
SEARING RESTORATION: The party took out the skeletons in the Room of Ruined Repose and took some damage but made the mistake of trying to spend hours Treating Wounds in a vulnerable location. They were ambushed by the goblins from the Goblin Headquarters together with the BBG, Drakus, at the same time and before the PCs could get healed to full. After the fighter and inventor went down a couple times, and the last potion and sooth spell were used, Tony Sparks thought this was the moment he'd been waiting for, the chance to prove his brilliance! Unfortunately, his Searing Restoration only healed his teammate 2 HP (we had bad rolls all around in this part of the dungeon), and Tony failed a subsequent, last-ditch attempt use Searing Restoration again on himself.... Tony Sparks died one round later... Could more Searing Restoration uses have saved his life had he passed his unstable check? It's hard to say, but maybe he could have escaped alive.
UNSTABLE: The unstable feats will be the most interesting aspect of the inventor once the unstable trait itself is fixed. I attempted a check for a second unstable action twice, one was a success, the other a failure. I'm aware this is being reworked, I'd suggest something like the Barbarian's rage in the last iteration of the P2e playtest, where the DC to use an unstable action can start at 0 and increase by 5 with each use. Introduce class abilities or feat options to get more unstable uses if you go in this direction.
After Tony Sparks died, the fighter sacrificed himself gloriously to cover the retreat for the gunslinger and bard. Was the two-encounters ambush uncalled for? Maybe. But at least it made for a good stress test. Overall, I was pleased with the Inventor's performance, it will be a great class if the unstable feats are done right.
MY INITIAL TAKEAWAYS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
- This class is fun and flavorful, the unstable feats are the most interesting thing about it. The modifications seem like they are meant to be a major part of the class, but I'm actually not as interested in those as they currently exist for the armor innovation.
- Having only one choice in armor (medium) was odd and restrictive for the innovation that specializes in armor, especially considering the wide array of options available to the Weapon innovation. I would have liked to go full, heavily-armored walking-tank and I imagine that other players will likely want to have the option for a light, extra speedy suit of armor with cloaking abilities at higher levels, or even abilities that replicate the effects of teleportation. I realize that heavy armor is an option down-the-line, but I would prefer that be an option out-of-the-box for the Armor innovation.
- Issues with the unstable trait are already known.
- I'd like a little something more added to the Transform Armor feat to make it worthwhile, but I'm not sure what. Or make it a skill feat.
- It seems like there should be more options for cross-pollination of innovations; more mix-and-match feats for weapons and armor, similar to the way the Prototype Companion feat simulates dipping into the Construct innovation.