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This weekend I finally get time to playtest the new classes. This playtest was made with 2 players. Me controlling the PC and a friend GMing.
It was a speedrun playtest of Fall of Plaguestone because we already have all the things done and I want to test the Soldier too and because the soldier's playtest only goes up to level 5, we chose to play a low-level adventure.
I won't describe the full adventures here because its too much to be written and instead I will go directly to my impressions and observations.
This playtest will focus into exemplar only. For other classes I will post my impressions in their respective forums.
Party composition
Build
I love life stealing characters in all games that I had player. So when I saw the Barrow’s Edge I immediately know that I would go with it and from it was my build begun!
So my exemplar is a versatile human that I made in order to get a general feat at level 1 and get access to medium armor so I could dump my dex and fully focus in Str and Con. That's point where I missed the proficiency of medium and heavier armors because this prevented my to make this build using an orc or a half-orc. Would be perfect to get Orc Ferocity without need to invest into dex to compensate the low AC or deal with the low AC until level 3 to get medium armor but this also delays the level that I could get Sentinel dedication to lvl 4 what could be even worse.
I made my Ikon choices to complete the combo with Barrow’s Edge getting Scar of the Survivor to make the healing rotation better so when I suffer damage I use the transcendence every round to heal myself. As worn Ikon I get Thousand-League Sandals because it helps the party while we are in exploration mode and its trancendence is pretty useful in the first round to allows me and my allies to get into the best postition while I change my Spark to Barrow’s Edge.
To use the use Barrow’s Edge at its maximum I used a Greatsword
Impressions
In practice this build made my exemplar some kind of high dmg tanker. I done some good amount of damage using my d12 sword with may full str bonus and when I was hit and take some damage I just needed to use an action to get healed half of the damage that I made in last hit it was really good for the survival while also was very rewarding to also see that I was one of those who are making most damage competing with the animist when we are facing a single enemy (in battle where we get multiple enemies the animists shined while in battles where we face a stronger enemy the exemplar shined). Yet I died in my last encounter against the first boss. Due a combination of low perception, low AC, very bad dice rolling and overestimating the animist healing my exemplar died in the last battle of the level :P. Yet for all other battles it performed pretty well.
Something that good surprised was Thousand-League Sandals was useful not only in exploration mode but also in the first round of battle specially when I rolled a good initiative. This Ikon transcendence is very useful and effective once that at cost one-action that you already will use to get into the frontline you allows your entire party to move to their best position at cost of their reactions. This was fantastic to their action economies to a point that even when the exemplar initiative wasn't the best many times worth to delay only to get everyone into the best positioning. Also due the fact that my exemplar was fully focused into HP recovery ikons I didn't need to worry about this transcendence competing with other ikons transcendence use in the first round once that in this round usually my HP is at maximum and I don't need to heal allowing to use the Thousand-League Sandals transcendence without any worry.
Due how pretty well this ikons combined I don't have any practical complains about them. Yet in the whiteroom if I choose a different ikon combination maybe I get a worse action economy and have to be force to choose to use actions that I don't like to use.
My overall impression of the class was good. I just need to get a better armor proficiency because the current one is limiting some other player choices.