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In this thread I will begin to put my impressions about my Slayer playtest with a friend.
Our playtest will be composed of one player controlling the party side and the other GMing with us alternating these roles in every fight.
The playtest will be a replay of encounters of the adventure The Fall of Plaguestone up to level 3 and the AP Age of Ashes from levels 4-20 (that I doubt that we have enough time to test every encounter up to the end of the playtest). We always use them for our playtests because they are well known for having hard encounters and have a pretty good diversity of enemy types.
To make some comparisons, this time we will make a 6-member party composed of a Daredevil, a Slayer, a Rogue, a Ranger, a Swashbucker and a Cleric. Due to this higher size of this party, the encounters will be rebalanced using the Encounter XP Budget, increasing the enemies numbers or changing some of them to become elite.
This specific post will start with my impressions of building the Slayer.
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Like daredevil, slayer has the option to select its key attribute between STR or DEX. But different from the daredevil, slayer have some synergy with each one, really allowing the player to choose if they prefer to fight at range, a safer position but with less damage. Or go melee, taking more risk but doing more damage. None of the subclass options locks the weapon type that you use, and we got feats that give to the player since from a full shield “proficiency” + reflex bonus against the quarry. You can use a trophy to give some non-physical damage to your shield block, similar to Cleric's Emblazon Armament, but more flexible because you can switch it during exploration, up to a feat that gives a relentless trait to crossbows.
Anyway, I selected STR.
The class has 4 subclasses to choose from, but only 2 really have some shine, Bloodseeking Blade and Warded Mail:
— Bloodseeking Blade that gives some extra damage from your trophies and gives the pretty strong activity Honed Strike that basically gives the character one attack with the same attack bonus that a fighter has and an extra 1d6 damage that looks like the ranger precision damage but a bit weaker (d6 instead of d8) but more versatile (you can switch the damage by changing your trophy during exploration). This can also be expanded by feats becoming even stronger and getting a fearsome, returning or shifting rune effect at level 7 (it's the effect and not the rune itself that means that this doesn't count toward your property runes limit).
About its feats:
— PAIRED BLOODSEEKER is a powerful feat that really makes fighting with 2 weapons. Even with the extra damage being reduced to d4, it is still worth a lot.
— PECULIAR WEAPONRY is also pretty good because it allows you to use any advanced weapon with your martial proficiency. Not only some ancestry-specific weapons like you get with weapons familiarity feats. So if you always want to play with advanced weapons but it doesn't have some ancestry trait, this is the feat for you.
— SHIFTING HUNT is interesting with this subclass because it allows you to set different damage types or additional runes for each weapon configuration.
— SHARE INSIGHT for this subclass is too situational to be worth it.
— UNERRING EDGE is probably the best subclass-specific feat of the class. Your Honed Strike now fully ignores both hidden and concealed conditions, basically allowing you to normally hit even invisible targets just knowing where they are, and the better part is you now get +3 circumstance bonus!
— Chymist’s Vials is a strange “Alchemical Sciences” that doesn't really give you Quick or Advanced Alchemy but the ability to create 2 alchemical items, one once per hour and the other once per minute. This doesn't even give you craft skill, which is strange, but due to how it works, it's not a problem:
— Chymist’s Eye is basically a See the Unseen + Darkvision against your quarry only. It's not bad but far too circumstantial. Its reinforced effect improved to become a bit less circumstantial if you take a trophy from a creature with darkvision and you don't have darkvision or lifesense. But in the end, darkvision is pretty easy to get by many ancestries, and See the Unseen also could be gotten with all-day durations using the Eye of the Unseen item. It becomes once per round at level 7, but this is useless in practice for an effect with a 10-minute duration.
— Ignition Vial is basically a 15-foot cone d4 damage “cantrip” limited to once per minute. But you can cast with one action if you are quickened by On the Hunt. You can change its fire damage to other damage by your trophy, and it becomes once per round starting from level 7. It's another pretty meh effect. In general, it's worse than a cantrip that you can already get with SLAYER’S TRICKS because up to level 7 it's only once per encounter. Its rentless trait probably doesn't make too much difference because, due to its cone effect, you most likely will use your quickened action to move to a position that allows you to affect more targets. Or avoid friendly fire anyway. The ability to change its damage is too dependent on the kind of quarry you defeated before, depending on them having some energy damage that is not fire. Pray that one of them could do more than 1 energy damage type to allow you to have some real-time choice. Otherwise, you will only be able to change the damage once per day. Its only real advantage is that it uses your key attribute instead of charisma or wisdom that the ancestry and class innate cantrip gives to you.
Chymist’s Vials also have 3 feats that depend on them:
— DRINK ADAPTATION SERUMS it's meh! It diminishes the environment's cold and heat effect by one. If you have a trophy of the same damage type as the environmental damage, you can get resistance equal to your level to hazardous terrain or environmental spells of the same damage type. It's very circumstantial and easily solved using items that usually are available in adventures with such kind of environment.
— CURE-ALL looks good because it cures paralyzed, petrified, sickened, or unconscious. But in fact it's just terrible for a level 4 class feat that depends on a subclass. It's a one-minute exploration effect (so you can't use it in battle), and Paralyzed is a rare effect that typically has the incapacitation trait along with it. Petrified is an even rarer effect that typically has incapacitation and requires that the target have successive failures. Heals Sickened is a joke because the affected ally can already use its actions retching and try to recover from it, and unconscious is the easiest effect to recover from in the game. Its reinforced effect could be useful only to try again to counteract one effect from a creature that was your quarry when the encounter ends. But the most fatal thing about this feat is that it only works in your allies, and as many of us well know, you are not your own ally.
— CATALYZING FLASK is another meh feat. It allows you to have an elixir that you can drink twice in a day, and its reinforce effect allows you to get a 1-minute status bonus to fortitude, reflex, or will, depending on the trophy. But it's a level 8 feat where its only advantage over things like the Cauldron feat or Horn Of Plenty ikon is that you can use the same elixir twice, and I'm not counting the alchemist/herbalist dedication. The save bonus also is a status bonus that frequently competes with other status bonuses to saves that many elixirs gives too.
— SHARE INSIGHT for this subclass gives an improvement to your allies seeing in the dark, but at this level probably everyone should have some way to get darkvision and share your ability to always have precise sense against your quarry, which is pretty situational.
— INFERNO VIAL is just an AOE increase to Ignition Vial cone to 30 ft. And that's it! A level 16 feat that only does this!
— Consecrated Panoply is entirely meh! Its initial benefit +1 saving thrown against your quarry. Its reinforced is better due a trick, because it gives this bonus against all creatures with the same traits as your trophy. So if you take a trophy from a humanoid (something relatively easy to take), you get a +1 status bonus against their save effects.
— Hunting Spike is terrible. It's an infinity dagger thrown with a holy or unholy trait that only gets a +1 Striking and a silver/cold iron material only at level 7! Then jump to +2 Greater Striking at level 13! And then jumps to +3 Major Striking at level 19! Seriously? What was in the mind of the class designer when they wrote this? Why do they think that a free dagger that improves its potency is way lazier with no property runes except an effect that works like a holy rune without the spirit damage is a good option? Why don't they simply think that if we take a Bloodseeking Blade thrown weapon with its extra level 7 returning rune it is not way better? Sometimes I simply don't understand what happens with the balance in some designers minds.
I won't even write about the feats based in this subclass because they aren't worth the time.
— Warded Mail is the second class option that has some real worth after Bloodseeking Blade. It basically improves the armor proficiency to heavy. Fortified Plate basically gives an armor specialization effect against the quarry, and its reinforce gives half of your level +1 as resistance against one damage type that probably most people will choose to be one physical damage type. Armored Shelter is basically a Rise a Shield circumstance bonus that also gives +2 to Reflexes; it's OK once it allows you to get such a bonus using a two-handed weapon, while Specialized Arsenal is basically an Armor Specialization effect with steroids when used against a quarry.
About its feats:
- SPIKED SURCOAT It's an interesting feat that gives a bit of damage to non-reach enemies that melee attack you. If they hit many attacks, this may be annoying to them. The problem is that the number of enemies that get reach, ranged attacks, and use spells increases as the game levels up, and this damage value doesn't accompany the HP increases well, becoming outdated as the level increases.
— PERSONALIZED GEAR gives the comfort trait, which isn't bad if you aren't a dwarf and don't want to be taken unarmored when sleeping. Yet it's situational.
— WALL OF WILL is fun because it gives an extra protection against quarry that doesn't have reach or ranged attack. But in practice it loses effectiveness over time because as long as the level improves, the number of enemies with range or reach improves a lot. If you try to use it in a Starfinder game, it becomes way less effective.
— SHARE INSIGHT IMO only worth it with this subclass. Giving 5 resistance to all damage from the quarry to all allies in 30 ft is pretty good.
— IMPENETRABLE SHELTER is good but comes too late.
So due to how much better Bloodseeking Blade over other subclass options, I have no doubt I will take it, and when I reach level 11, I will take Warded Mail too.
About ancestry, I choose human because I found most of the level 1 feats good. A problem that I like to have. So with human, I can take 1 more class feat.
My chosen attribute becomes 4, 1, 0, 1, 3, 0 because I take the Field Medic background and choose to have a better WIS instead of CON because this makes the slayer have an already expert perception (and goes up to legendary) and because its feats give innate spell uses wisdom (so I may take some offensive spells, but probably I will take some supportive ones instead). It's risky but may be worth it. I will see when playing with it. I also put a point in Int to try to make Monster Lore work over time.
Now finally I came to the level 1 class feat options.
— BLOODSCENT Honestly, this is useless in my games. In all my online games, Foundry already shows the enemies HP bars or descriptions divided into 4 parts representing the enemies current HP. Its condition is already shown because many things in the game need the players to know if the enemy is under some condition. Even in presential games I don't have any GM that refuses to clearly describe the general state of enemies HP. This basically just exists to force GMs that refuse to give any info about the current state of enemies to do with RK.
— CROSSBOW SLAYER is an interesting feat to make arbalests viable to be used by slayers instead of bows. But honestly, I think this isn't enough due to the eventuality that On the Hunt has. IMO if you want to fight at range, it is better to just take an Advance Bow with PECULIAR WEAPONRY.
— DRINK ADAPTATION SERUMS I write about them above in the analysis of the Chymist’s Vials subclass. Due to my choice to select Bloodseeking Blade, I cannot even take this feat.
— REPELLING SHIELD It's a Rise a Shield with +2 circumstance to Reflexes checks too + Shield Block feat + some additional damage type to block beyond physical, depending on the trophy you used on it. It's a good level 1 class feat, IMO.
— SPIKED SURCOAT I write about them above in the analysis of the Warded Mail subclass. Due to my choice to select Bloodseeking Blade, I cannot even take this feat before level 11.
— SUDDEN POUNCE is a cool feat. It allows the slayer to move, off-guard an enemy and Strike in a very cool way. This becomes even better as long as the athletic feats improve the Long Jump distance.
— PAIRED BLOODSEEKER I already analyzed above.
— PECULIAR WEAPONRY I already analyzed above.
So my feat choices were REPELLING SHIELD and PAIRED BLOODSEEKER because I like that my martials can use a shield well because Shield is probably one of the best third actions that a martial can get, especially when it has a Shield Block reaction. I also select the Shield Boss as my bloodseeking blade and a hatchet as my paired bloodseeker, allowing me to benefit from both having a shield and striking with additional damage twice.
For skills I already got Survival and Monster Lore from the class and Medicine and Warfare Lore from the background. Due to putting +1 into INT I got 5 more feats that was Acrobatics, Athletics, Nature, Thievery and Religion.
For equipment, I take a steel shield with a shield boss, a hatchet, and lattice armor.
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In the next posts of this thread, I will put how my (and my friend's) playtest experience was in each level, GMing and playing as a slayer!
Interesting that you chose a larger party and one w/ characters (Rogue, Swashbuckler, & Ranger) that fill similar roles to the playtest PCs. Was that intentional, pit them side by side? Are they made similarly too?
Will you be taking support for two-weapon use? I don't recall any in class. Also Shifting Combination (w/ say a bastard sword) grants a strong faux Double Slice albeit with a mostly useless prereq feat.
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Yes, we choose to make this playtest with Rogue, Swashbuckler, & Ranger exactly to make comparisons between the classes. To see where each one shines, where each one differs, and where they look similar and compare more directly.
The idea is to put a ruffian rogue to work as the main DPR and compare it with Slayer in terms of damage efficiency and mobility. Initially we don't believe that rogue will compare well with DD because our DD is way more focused on maneuvers than on damage (in general, most of DD options are way more maneuver-oriented than damage-oriented).
The ranger will be a two-weapon one and more oriented to compare with DD press actions. We don't believe initially that DD can be comparable in terms of DPR to the ranger, but we want to see the difference in utility of damage-focused press actions vs. maneuver-focused press actions. For example, we have a serious doubt if we use a press action to maneuver with DD and geting a success roll if it's better just Strike twice with MAP-3 and MAP-6 the same target or if it's better to just move to another target and try another maneuver with MAP-3 and how in practice doing a similar thing with the ranger will work (including the fact that we need to pick a one handed grab or trip trait weapon to benefit from fighting with 2 weapons) if we make a maneuver like a trip or grab with ranger than Twin Takedown with MAP-2 and MAP-4 and another Strike with MAP-4 wont be way more effective and how the Hunt Prey will delay the ranger compared to DD that doesn't have such delay and can run over the battle field using its manuvers in different targets and see how each helps the party.
The other thing we want to see with ranger is the tracking and battle effectiveness. Once both ranger and slayer can have a prey/quarry, how well will each one work against the same target, and how much will the slayer's inability to obtain a new quarry weigh in the fight?
For swashbuckler, the idea is similar to the ranger comparing a gymnast to making a maneuver to get panache and then a finisher with a DD, making a Daring Stunt. Then Strike twice with MAP-3 and MAP-6 or Caroming Charge. If the swash fails, how effective to the party will its finisher's attempts be with MAP vs a DD just trying again with a failed maneuver with MAP-3 or MAP-6 or just ignoring it and making a Caroming Charge?
Such comparisons may help us to improve a playtest report and notice things that are fun but need some improvements, and things that are currently good as they are. Things that are currently unfun with one class but a similar thing is fun with another and why, and so on.
And the cleric is to try to keep everyone alive in an unbalanced party full of light and medium martials. :P
Another reason behind my making a 6 PC playtest this time is that currently all my PF2e games that I'm playing are running with 5-6 PCs. We learn that PF2e is more fun with large parties than with small ones due to how fast most encounters are compared to other systems like D&D and how well the team play of the game works.
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This time it's the Slayer's turn to analyze level 1, replaying the adventure The Fall of Plaguestone.
I think the first and most obvious point in the gameplay is the difficulty of getting the Mark Quarry. Of all the level 1 encounters, only 2 were where it was actually possible to foreshadow it. The Grizzly Bear encounter, where we forced it to get a foreshadow (the adventure doesn't make it clear if you know whether there's a bear in the area or not, but we assume the NPC who gives the quest knew and warned you), and the first level boss, where you actually get a foreshadow of it.
That said, having or not having a quarry, at least at level 1, was much less impactful than I imagined. In practice, when using the Bloodseeking Blade, the main limitation of the target not being a quarry is that you don't ignore any resistance they might have, and On the Hunt will only work when a creature falls. However, on the two creatures where we had the benefit of the target being the quarry, On the Hunt was rarely activated because it was a strong creature that fought alone and was very difficult to critically hit. To the point that On the Hunt worked more often when there were multiple enemies than against the quarry, which, curiously, neither of the two we encountered even took a critical hit to trigger the reaction.
The main use of Mark Quarry at the end of the day was to get trophies from a bear with slashing damage and a human, which we chose with bludgeoning damage. The problem is that, when we got the bear damage, we wanted to swap the trophy that was on the weapon, dealing spirit damage, and put it on the shield. However, we had to sleep to do that, which honestly was just a waste of time.
The other interesting aspect is that what made our Slayer strong and fun to play was actually the weapon's Reinforced build, with Honed Strike. This basically turned the Slayer into a Precision Ranger with Hunter's Aim, but it works with any weapon, making it quite competitive in practice.
Speaking of competitiveness, the Slayer competed well with the Swashbuckler and especially with the Rogue. Since at this level, its additional damage was basically the same as the Rogue's, but with a better type and without needing the target to be off-guard. I have no complaints about this aspect; the Slayer simply worked well in terms of DPR.
I think the most curious detail I can comment on from this practical playtest of the Slayer is that although it's thematically designed to be a kind of Monster Hunter or Bounty Hunter. In practice, we didn't feel that in the gameplay. As mentioned before, On the Hunter activated more easily when fighting multiple enemies without quarrying than against a single large quarry; the best parts of the weapon don't need quarrying to function. The RK from Monster Lore doesn't work well if you don't invest heavily in Intelligence, but you have no motivation to invest in Intelligence beyond that. Even if you obtain information, it's not very useful to you, since changing the weapon's trophy takes a day.
In the end, the Slayer felt much more like a generic DPR than a Bounty Hunter/Monster Hunter. It was fun to play, but in this theme of hunting quarries, giving a mechanical feeling that you're actually doing it, the Ranger is much more suited to this theme than the Slayer, who just seems like a different fighter. And now, at the second level, I don't think this will improve, since with Instant Enmity the only real concern about using Mark Quarry will be to get trophies.
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Very little really changed in the Slayer's gameplay at level 2. Since we selected Instant Enmity, the only thing that made a real difference was ignoring the Stone Horse's physical resistance. The third trophy we got from the level 1 boss replaced the one we got from the bear, but without a significant change in damage type; it was more because it had the humanoid trait, but it made zero difference in combat.
Among the level 2 feats, we were torn between Instant Enmity and Slayer's Tricks and chose Instant Enmity. But honestly, we regret that and will retrain for Slayer's Tricks at the next level, because besides the benefit being small, the once-per-day limit makes it very limited. In practice, there's very little advantage in receiving the quarry benefit in combat using the Bloodseeking Blade. Another feat we're thinking of retraining is Paired Bloodseeker. On paper it's interesting, but in practice using Honed Strike and Raise a Shield is almost always better; swapping the feat for Peculiar Weaponry and using some advanced d8 weapon instead would probably be more interesting.
Aside from that, the class remained efficient and continues to resemble a generic martial class rather than the kind of hunter it purports to be on paper.
Except for Stone Horse, where we actually used Instant Enmity, there were no quarries at this level, therefore no new trophies.
Sorry for the delay; this time I took a while to post due to lack of personal time.
This post will refer to the last level (3) of playing The Fall of Plaguestone. In the next level, the test will refer to the last part of the first AoA book, where players are expected to be at level 4.
In this level, we swapped the rogue ruffian for a fighter.
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At level 3, the Slayer didn't gain anything truly unique. So we focused on replacing Instant Enmity, which wasn't proving very useful, with Slayer Tricks.
And honestly, it was well worth it. Initially, we tested it with Infectious Enthusiasm and Shield, a combination that was actually quite good since Infectious Enthusiasm stacked with Honed Strike. But since the character was already built with high Wisdom, we later switched to EA via Adapted Cantrip, and it was much better. Even with a lower spell cooldown, being able to cast two 2-action cantrips whenever an enemy died was a lot of fun.
The rest was basically the same experience as level 2. The difference this time was that the final boss was a quarry, which helped speed things up 3x due to the group's two critical hits against her plus the death of her bodyguard.
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At this level, Instant Enmity was brought back, but in the level 4 feat slot, because it simply seemed better than the available options.
That said, I'm starting to question whether it's really worth worrying about the target being your quarry. The only target where this would be truly beneficial would be in the fight against the Greater Barghest, where the quarry effect against the target's physical resistance would prove useful. But in practice it wasn't; this effect was already negated by the runes, while the Greater Barghest had reinforced its resistance with Blink, but Blink provides Resist All Resist Any, which doesn't exactly qualify as “your quarry is resistant to physical damage.” Perhaps some more permissive GM might consider it, but I know many wouldn't, as I didn't.
The curious detail is that at this level we finally had more than one quarry. An NPC gave details about two of the strongest enemies we faced, who were indeed high-level enemies. But, as I said above, the quarry doesn't make that noticeable a difference, besides providing trophies (of which we now have 7, with 2 in use and 5 unused, which puts us at the limit of trophies allowed, at least until we get other feats that use trophies). Because against the greater barghest, we only managed to trigger On the Hunt once due to a single NAT 20 we rolled against him (his AC was too high to cause a critical hit without the NAT), while in other encounters, the reaction was basically triggered by the death of other creatures.
Otherwise, there were no notable changes from what was already discussed in the previous levels. On the Hunt allows you to use 2 EA in a round against the various weak enemies that were still alive, and the slayer using Honed Strike whenever possible.
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The next analysis will be of level 6, since level 5 of AoA mostly has few relevant deathmatches. The only extreme one is easily resolved through conversation.
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A note on your Bloodscent evaluation. While I agree with your take about health percent and conditions, I think the main benefit might be turning your recall knowledge checks into a free action vs your quarry or anyone taking Bleed. Not every Slayer would invest in RK, but it's not bad for those that do.
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The problem with Bloodscent is, as I've already pointed out, that since I play a lot online, most of the information is already known. The VTT shows it. Even the effects and conditions often need to be public, not only to avoid blinding the player to whether the abilities they use are working or not, but also because many abilities have conditions as requirements and malfunction if the player doesn't know them, such as reaction triggers and ability requirements that depend on specific conditions.
In none of the games I play does the GM hide conditions or the enemy's state. We may not know them numerically or as a percentage, but my GMs, even in person, say things like “He seems fine”, “He's a little injured”, “He's already quite injured”, etc. That's why Bloodscent makes little sense to me. And honestly, if I had to take a class feat from a specific class that was released 7 or 8 years after the game was launched, I would be able to know more or less how the enemies are doing. What effects and conditions I applied is working? What's they current condition? I probably wouldn't be playing this game.
Imagine someone casting a fear spell and the game master always secretly rolling the spell and never revealing the result. That person will never use fear in the game again because they don't even know if it's working.
That's why, IMO, it's a feat that doesn't make much sense unless your GM is so bad to a point that you need a class feat to force them to show something.
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The problem with Bloodscent is, as I've already pointed out, that since I play a lot online, most of the information is already known. The VTT shows it. Even the effects and conditions often need to be public, not only to avoid blinding the player to whether the abilities they use are working or not, but also because many abilities have conditions as requirements and malfunction if the player doesn't know them, such as reaction triggers and ability requirements that depend on specific conditions.
In none of the games I play does the GM hide conditions or the enemy's state. We may not know them numerically or as a percentage, but my GMs, even in person, say things like “He seems fine”, “He's a little injured”, “He's already quite injured”, etc. That's why Bloodscent makes little sense to me. And honestly, if I had to take a class feat from a specific class that was released 7 or 8 years after the game was launched, I would be able to know more or less how the enemies are doing. What effects and conditions I applied is working? What's they current condition? I probably wouldn't be playing this game.
Imagine someone casting a fear spell and the game master always secretly rolling the spell and never revealing the result. That person will never use fear in the game again because they don't even know if it's working.
That's why, IMO, it's a feat that doesn't make much sense unless your GM is so bad to a point that you need a class feat to force them to show something.
Great point. Hell, one of the most often recommended modules for Foundry PF2 is "Modifiers Matter", the entire point of which is to highlight when a buff or debuff changes the outcome of a roll. That's the polar opposite of hiding it, and it's popular precisely because it points out whenever things like Inspire Courage or Fear make a difference.
People like it because it feels lousy never knowing if your support abilities are doing anything (unlike damage, where it's open information since you're the one rolling it).
It's funny I was just reading how one should avoid invisible, number-changing abilities when building monsters, and the reasons why. Ex. instead of "action gives more damage with bow" have "action gives enemy fiery arrows" (for the same amount of extra damage). "Modifiers Matter" sounds like it addresses the PC side of this, revealing the hidden mechanics and numbers. Cool.
Realized writing this how I habitually do this. Often when a PC lands a Strike due to another PC's buff/debuff, I point that out to the second player. "That's you." It really highlights a Bard's input I've found. (Heh, my arrogant SF Envoy used to claim credit out loud.)
On topic, I was keeping an eye out for how often our Daredevil's antics helped in similar ways, and I'm unsure they ever did except on one Pressing Pummel and some actions lost standing. Not his fault, he did succeed at maneuvers, it's just his own Strike would've helped more. Maybe if we'd had someone with Reactive Strike or enemies had lasted longer.
Realized writing this how I habitually do this. Often when a PC lands a Strike due to another PC's buff/debuff, I point that out to the second player. "That's you." It really highlights a Bard's input I've found. (Heh, my arrogant SF Envoy used to claim credit out loud.)
Yeah I do this in-person as well, especially on crits. It makes the buffing/debuffing player feel great.
Modifiers Matter just automates it as you'll see a green "Courageous Anthem +1" in the result of the attack roll so everyone knows it changed the outcome.
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By skipping level 5, at this level you combined the benefit of becoming an expert in martial weapons with the level 6 feat, which we decided to be Relentless Counterstrike. Although we ended up not being able to use the reaction, either because we had already used On the Hunt before, or because the Slayer was being less targeted. Given that the daredevils in the group ended up arriving faster and receiving a lot of the enemy's attention.
As this changes almost nothing in Slayer's gameplay, it just provides another opportunity to use On the Hunt, there were no significant changes to Slayer's gameplay. Something you may have already noticed from my previous posts. The fact that Slayer's gameplay experience is quite concise and even a little boring with progression.
At this level there was also no foreshadow. It's basically an exploration without much information about what will be found ahead. There was even a group of kobolds who provided advance information about a mining area, but we're not going to test it because we decided to skip level 7 of the book and go straight to the level 8 part (we'll just take the equipment and treasures we would gain, distribute it among the characters and go straight to the final fortress). In other words, there are no trophies to be acquired.
As for the quarry, we started using Instant Enmity in all fights, as they were basically one severe encounter per day, and there was almost always a prominent enemy to use this reaction on without problems. Although it made practically no difference in terms of gameplay, as they were strong enemies and difficult to crit and trigger On the Hunt, and a large part of On the Hunt came from the deaths of the weakest creatures.
That said, casting 2 Electric Arcs using Slayers Tricks remains by far the best use of On the Hunt (it's basically fireball damage with every action, only more accurate and with more concise damage), especially when there are multiple enemies.
What weighed a little at this level was the fact that we had placed a fire damage trophy on the Bloodseeking Blade. However, as the number of enemies with immunity to fire was relevant, we decided to change its trophy back to spirit and put it on the shield. I know that in the next fight we will fight a golem and that this damage will therefore be lost. But I wanted to leave it like that to “emulate” what it would be like for a player who doesn't know that he will face what comes next. Just like what happened with the fire trophy. But anyway, this brings back an important point about trophies. The lack of dynamism.
At this level, I can clearly say. The Slayer needs to be able to change trophies in combat, preferably at the cost of just one action. In the current situation, the trophy is practically a rune; you choose the one you think is best for most cases and go with it. If you don't have a good foreshadowing of what you're going to face, you won't know which trophy to use, and even if you do, it's most likely just 1 or 2 creatures; it's unlikely you'll have a general foreshadowing unless you're fighting fiends or the undead in an adventure focused on this type of enemy. And moreover, we have Monster Lore, which is almost useless. For the Slayer, who cannot touch his trophies, knowing whether the creature in combat has any immunity, weakness, resistance, or attacks of a certain type to protect himself with trophies on the shield is of no use. Since you cannot exchange them in combat, and investing heavily in intelligence just to use your RK to help the group is a sacrifice that is normally not worth it for the character. I can't imagine people failing to invest in constitution or strength to invest heavily in intelligence just to have a better chance at an RK that won't even be that useful to you directly. So Monster Lore has been useless at the end of the day, no use for the character, no significant effectiveness due to low attribute.
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As both Daredevil and Slayer don't get anything exclusive at level 7, I'm thinking about talking to my friend so we can jump straight to level 8. Slayer even gets a feature to start combats with reactions like Guardian, but I still don't think it's worth doing a playtest at this level just for that reason.