Another playtest report, added bits from 2nd and 3rd session

I had the chance to playtest the Next ruleset last monday as the DM. I had a full group of five, all with varying levels of experience with DnD and RPGs in general, ranging from one with more experience than me who started with Cyberpunk and AD&D2nd, to someone who only had a little almost freeform Call of Chthulhu before joining our current DnD 3.5 and 4e games.

To start with, all the players had some foreknowledge of the material in the playtest. I'd updated them intermittenly as new information had become available. I also advised those who had the time to check out the playtest package beforehand, but I believe only two of them did.

The divided up the pregens easily, most choosing to play the kind of character they usually play, though one specifically wanted to play a character different from what he usually plays (wanted the Cleric of Moradin instead of the Halfling Rogue).

After some brief brainstorming for personality and introducing the characters to each other, I set the group off in a village as a mercenary group looking for income.
And the first thing the party does is split.
While most of the party decided to head for the tavern as a classic spot to pick up adventure, the halfing went about to ask around for rumours. I let the player add their Folk Lore skill on the information gathering roll as he specifically said he wanted to ask the farmers. He learned that some humanoids had been harassing the people, and one farmer's field's had been completely ruined.
The group decided to head to the field and look for tracks. After a bit of looking, the Cleric of Pelor found enough evidence to tell which way the raiders went, thanks to his Wilderness Lore skill.

After a couple of hours of tracking into the night, the party arrives at the Caves. The Rogue heads out to peek into the first cave mouth (kobold lair), but fails to notice the sentries and almost gets crushed by a rock the sentries pushed down. The party Wizard decides to float a torch to the kobolds to at least partially negate their vision advantage while the Dwarven Fighter rapid fires his crossbow at the small critters as it would take him too long to scamper up the hill. He fluffs this as having several crossbow bolts strapped to his thigh that he pushes the crossbow against to cock and load it quickly. The kobolds are quickly mowed down, and the ones that attempt to escape are quickly shot down in the light of the flying torch.
They then entered the lair, and flubbed their checks to notice the pit trap, ending with both dwarves who had taken point ending in the pit. And quickly destroying the pit with a great Strength roll. With the party divided, I brought in a group of kobolds. Half the kobolds pelted any characters they saw with daggers, while another half was carrying boiling oil towards the pit.
After the two dwarves had climbed out of the pit, they were effectively blocking the the way to the kobolds, so the Halfling Rogue jumped on the back of the Fighter. I ruled that if he missed his climb check, he wouldn't get his action, but wouldn't fall without getting to a hazard failure.
At this point, the Fighter realized that his melee attacks automatically killed a kobold, so he got creative with his descriptions. Group favourite was bodyslamming a kobold into the boiling oil.
Last two kobolds retreated, and the Fighter threw a severed head after them, attempting Intimidate, but failed the roll so we concluded that the reptilian cowards didn't understand common.

At this point, the party decided to retreat a safe distance from the caves to rest up and wait for daylight. I thought about having their rest interrupted by a kobold scouting party, but since they mentioned getting good distance and not lighting a fire as counter measures, I just rolled the dice for show a couple of times. The Wizard noted that there was no mention of elf trance/meditation or such, and thus we assumed he'd have to sleep like everyone else.

The next day, the party returned to finish off the kobolds and the rats. The Wizard enjoyed racking up the kills on the rats with burning hands, especially since he could stay out of harm's way thanks to the split movement rule.
The players did note that the kobold chieftain had more hit points than the fighter, but it didn't overtly bother anybody.
The party went to the common room last. I described the kobolds there panicking, and I changed some of the normal kobolds there teenagers (no stat difference, just fluff). After a bit of thinking, the group agreed that they didn't want to finish off the kobolds since they weren't even 100% sure they were up to no good.

Next, the group closed on the beast den, and... decided it smelled too awful, so they skipped to the ogre lair. It took a moment for them to realize that the bear was dead instead of sleeping since the only one who looked inside was the Halfing who didn't have applicable skills.
A bit more reconnaisance, and the group decided they'd jump the ogre, confident they could take it. The Rogue would start off with a sling attack, and the others would then rush in. The Halfling's Lucky trait was the only thing that saved the initial attack, as even with advantage, it took both rerolls to land that attack.
The Cleric of Moradin's Defender feat proved mighty useful, stopping a critical hit and a normal hit on consecutive rounds. The characters expended most of their magic, but in the end they did manage to win.

And that's where we ended the session. All players agreed they wanted more, so we've got another game scheduled in two weeks' time.

Reception was good, and one of the players even said it was the best version of DnD he had played so far (previous experience in 3.0, 3.5 and 4e). The advantage/disadvantage mechanic received praise, as did the speed of play (the ogre fight took six or seven rounds, but lasted only 16 minutes).
The biggest complaint was some of the choices on the characters, especially the lack of Wisdom on the Halfling Rogue.

Overall, a positive experience. If things will only improve from here, we can expect a good game out of all this.

too generous with the crossbow, but good otherwise. Thanks!

Thank you for the post, it was a good read.

Great Playtest, although you should have butchered them mercilessly when they split the party in the village. ;o)

Great report and nice off-the-cuffin'.

I played today (the fighter).

1. I enjoyed the Adv/DisA system

2. Stripping out the AoO/OA really helped in my opinion (I kinda hope they never come back). It made party positioning and tactics more important. And even more so, it shifted thinking from "I cannot do X due to AoO" to "I can do Y if I just move here" without having to think about it. Very liberating, it really sped up play, and it allowed everyone to "do their thing". We got through quite a bit in the 4 hour time slot.

Overall, better than I thought (esp after playing d20 Star Wars the day before).

TerraDave said:

too generous with the crossbow, but good otherwise. Thanks!

Click to expand...

To clarify, I didn't let him get in more than one attack on a turn, just to take advantage of the rule to load and shoot the crossbow as a single action as notes in the equipment chapter.

Two more session played. Still overall excited, but we're noticing some niggles.

The characters entered the goblin warren, and wisely laid in wait for a moment and managed to ambush the goblin patrol (a sneak attack and a burning hands did the trick). The players didn't get a chance to notice the difference between goblins and the kobolds they'd fought before (not that there are many).
They then headed left, to the guard room where they once again lay waste to the little critters and the fighter noticed he doesn't autokill them ("Time to actually start using the axe!"). The last of the goblins fled up the stairs towards the hobgoblin outpost, but I decreed that they weren't interested in getting involved in their scuffles and kept the door bolted. Poor goblin got scewered by a crossbow bolt.

The party took a quick look around the room and then though there were probably more goblins beyond the door so the fighter boldly shouts for them to come and face him.
No response.
A Strength roll and some splintered wood later, the fighter is alone at the top of the stairs with seven hobgoblins while the rest of the party is taking cover behind the bend in the stairs. Needless to to say, he didn't last many rounds getting focus fired, even if the halfling and wizard managed to give some ranged support (cleric of pelor's dice weren't so hot during either session when it came to attack rolls).
We soon discovered that the cleric of pelor is too weak to pull the fallen fighter to safety since dwarf plus armor weighted more than his heavy load, reducing him to drag speed. So he instead dashed from behind cover, tagged the fighter with a cure spell, and dashed back to cover. Complete with acting it out in person, to the mirth of the players.

The group made a hasty retreat to the forest surrounding the Caves, using a couple of tricks to mask their trail and licked their wounds. They decided to head back, but before climbing the stairs they'd have the fighter drink the potion they'd found in the ogre's cave but couldn't identify since even if it was poison, the dwarf was immune.
You can imagine my delight when the loudest member of the party turned invisible.

The hobgoblins had stripped the goblin guard post of everything, and had set up the table to block the last strip of stairs leading up to their post. Hearing someone scampering up the stairs, they take position with bows, ready to rain arrows.
The fighter took a look at the makeshift blockade and asked if it was of good make. I said it'd propably last a couple of solid hits before breaking. He said he wanted to pick it up overhead and break it over his shoulders. Sure thing, and that makes the hobgoblins fire aimlessly at the staircase (they can't target him since he's still invisible).
hits the fan when the fighter gets to the top of the stairs and seems the five reinforcement hobgoblins that have appeared to replace the one they killed last time, and they've all got bows trained at him once he's visible.
Tactical retreat later, the group is thinking on what to do while the wizard keeps the hobgoblins distracted by mage handing one half of the table (after previously having used it has a shield for the fighter in similar fashion).
They spend so much time I decide to have a hobgoblin circle around and force some goblins with him to flank the party.
Having to fight on two fronts now, and knowing they can't hold off if the whole group of archers gets line of sight, they batter aside the new enemies and once again retreat, this time for the night to refresh spells and health.

The next day, they return once more to the goblin caves, intending to slowly but surely wear down the resistance. Unfortunately for them, the hobgoblin warlord has concluded that the persistent pests are such a nuisance that they must be gotten rid of, once and for all. As such, outside the entrance split into three groups are 20 hobgoblin archers and the warlord, waiting to ambush the party... with a natural 20 on the stealth roll.
Only the fighter manages to spot them, but he didn't roll well enough to act before the volley of arrows that severely wounds the party (save the halfling who is always hidden behind one of the other party members).
The party beats a hasty retreat, dropping prone after a double move to force disadvantage on the archers. Rinse and repeat until they're out of range. It's how they teach soldiers to move on a battlefield, so I saw no point in denying them the chance.
They decided to retreat to town and ponder what to do next. On the way, they ran into three gnolls returning from a pillaging run. The party expected a difficult fight since in all previous editions we've played gnolls have been tougher than hobgoblins. Imagine their surprise when the gnolls died unceremoniously with barely any danger. Well, it did work as a confidence boost, at least.

The third session started with the party pondering their options since they clearly couldn't beat the hobgoblins. I pointed out they might try and get better gear. Of course, I also had to point out to them that they'd gone two sessions without taking the equipment off the dead and selling it for profit. I allowed them to backtrack enough to take everything off the gnolls from the end of the last session and they noted that selling the equipment off just those three doubled the amount of money they now had on hand.
Still, the only thing they really could afford was a heavy crossbow for the fighter ("It uses Strength for attack and damage? Yes, please!").

Rested and with two healing potions brewed, the party heads back towards the Caves. The hobgoblins have entirely collapsed the entrance to the goblin den, blocking that way of entering. After a moment, they decide to clear the foul-smelling cave since it's the last whose entrance is on the valley floor.
They enter the beast den, and head straight to the pool cavern.
B-o-r-i-n-g. One ooze is attacked with weapons (players didn't want to metagame, and the wizard flubbed his lore roll, we're getting a running gag about the wizard knowing where in the capitol's library would be the book covering which ever subject), after that the party just retreat and pelts them from afar. The whole combat lasted half an hour, and there was absolutely no excitement. The biggest worry was the fighter running out of bolts before the tedium would be over.

Next they had a random encounter with rats in one of the empty caverns, and laughed as they imagined the cleric of moradin placing his shield on the floor to stop one of the rats from hitting the fighter.

Now, the owlbear... the party knew those could be dangerous. And rushes right in on the sleeping owlbear. After one of them gets badly mauled, the wizard has the idea of ray of frosting it so they can attack it from safety. Only works for one round, and then the fighter is once again down for the count. Also the first time that searing light actually hits something, cheers abound.
The party does win, but they're all out of spells and hit points again, so we end the session on them retreating once again to the forest.

Overall impression is still positive, though some of the players noted that the owlbear was way more of a challenge than similar XP worth of kobolds, especially if it got a hug in.
Fighter's player is worried that his offensive output won't scale fast enough with the escalating hit points on some of the monsters.