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Some notes and feedback on playing the exemplar for one session.
Save the technical stuff for the survey, this is more of a class FEEL feedback.
Character: Exemplar 13 Versatile Human Background: Ruby Phoenix Fanatic
Ikons: Gaze as Sharp as Steele (Body)
Titan's Breaker (Weapon - Bo Staff)
Victor's Wreath (Worn)
Root Epithet: Brave
Dominion Epithet: Born of the Bones of the Earth
Class Feats: 1: Sanctified Soul (Natural Ambition)
2: Claim Initiate Domain (Might - Athletic Rush)
4: Monk Dedication
6: Basic Kata (Monastic Weaponry)
8: Claim Advanced Domain (Might - Enduring Might)
10: Monk's Flurry
12: Advanced Kata (Flurry of Maneuvers)
Skill/General/Ancestry Feats: Listing ones that were used in the encounters
4S: Titan Wrestler
12S: Kip Up
3G: Incredible Initiative
11G: Fleet
Equipment: listing applicable to feedback/encounters
+2 greater striking Bo staff (gr. Crushing, gr. Flaming prop. Runes)
Armbands of Athleticism
Boots of Bounding
Gr. Googles of Night
Decided against house ruling for the weapon Ikon to work with unarmed since I wanted to keep it all RAW for the purpose of playtesting
Changed my monk to exemplar with a trip based build vs the grapple build of the original. He found a stick Sun Wukong left behind in the forest. He thought it would be funny to see what happened when some rando picked it up. Badda Bing Badda Bang Exemplar for a day.
Party of 4: Exemplar, Fighter, Sorcerer, Wizard
Encounter 1: 2 Iron Golems
This fight went well due to their low reflex making it trivial to trip them. The flaming rune of my weapon though meant it was hard to NOT get a net neutral or positive in the golems favor with each hit due to some low damage die roles except for the one power attack like transcendence attack. This is the fight where you are glad to have taken the TITAN’S BREAKER but it only applies to the Spirit damage that is gives you so it might not work RAW with your Weapon Expertise Spirit Damage, but we just applied it since it was only 3 extra damage at this point.
Eventually ripped up some pieces of paper as flash cards to keep track of shifting the Imminences. Since I was unable to get a the build I wanted without giving up the Reactive Strike Feat I went with the Gaze body Ikon for the Reactive Strike Transcendence which is super clunky. It’s not a bad immanence and was my default for the +1 status to Perception for exploration and initiative rolls. The healing one would be the go to otherwise as the Gaze is just too annoying to use in practice. It was okay with the Brave epithet to get some movement out of using the Transcendence at least. No use out of the worn Transcendence as our casters had Air Bubble for the poison clouds, but it would have been good if we didn’t have that very specific counter.
Encounter 2: 4 on level human enemies (Weapon Master, Caster, Two Rogue Types with Disarm tricks)
Trip was pretty bad here since the Rogue types had very good Reflex. We mostly locked down and focused fired the caster allowing them to do nothing. The casters and the fighter did all the work I mostly found this fight I was just kind of there adding the +1 with the worn Ikon. Very poor performance(rolls) from my character and the Reactive Strike Transcendence was clunky enough that I just stopped caring and was just a Bless stick for the Fighter. Not a great look for the Exemplar, when it’s shtick gets blanked by bad rolls or good defenses and you need to use Shift Immanence as an action to get back in the flow is a pretty lackluster feeling.
Also I forgot it's line Transcendence, Wound the World, existed so never used it that's on me. Looking back with how our fights worked out spatially I would not have used it, small rooms. I also never crit so never used the cool Dominion Epithet effect.
Overall Thoughts: It was boring. Not gonna mince words. It is only above the Investigator in classes I would personally not want to play. I am not one to enjoy the constant shifting of the Ikons. It's turn to turn bookkeeping is not fun for me. Maybe if I had done a sword or spear build that had more support feats it would have been better. I think it good to get info on the other paths.
I think the power was decent overall some of the Ikons could use buff or more support. The reason the character ended up very similar to the original was due to lack of support feats for the Titan's Breaker path. That path really needs some more stuff. Probably more about testing the Ikons I suppose as it's the core class feature. I wish I had found it fun I really do but I guess the turn to turn stuff just kills it for me so I likely won't enjoy it even with one of the different weapon builds.
On a technical level it seems fine even if I don't enjoy it. I mean I personally could play Hercules or whomever better or at least with less complicated play patterns with a fighter and just say he is a Demigod yah know.