This One Goes to . . . Ten [Merged four Oct 29 Playtest Package announcement threads]

Ultimatecalibur · Oct 30, 2012

Blackbrrd said:
@Ultimatecalibur  I might be wrong regarding Cleave, but the wording is completely different from Whirlwind:

Cleave: "On a hit, roll the expertise dice in place of the weapon’s damage dice."
Whirlwind: "If you hit one of the additional creatures, roll the expertise die you spent, using it in place of the weapon’s damage dice and adding no bonuses to the damage."

Damage is normally: [W]+bonuses for damage.
Cleave says: roll [E] instead of [W], so it is: [E]+bonuses
Whirlwind says: rolle [E] instead of [W] and no bonuses, so it just [E]

It might be sloppy wording, but since you only get it when you drop an enemy I found it logical. You were right about the reach-thing though.

I meant "auto cleave" in that given a number of targets equal to 1+number of available expertise dice, Whirlwind attack can make the same amount of attacks as Cleave would without requiring that the preceding attack to have killed a target.

Magil · Oct 31, 2012

I've only read some of it, but I felt like posting some initial reactions:

Fighters get a maneuver every 2nd level except 6--conveniently, this fills up most levels where you don't choose a feat. Good call imo.

At a glance, like the tradition/deity stuff. At-will/encounter stuff looks a bit better than it was before.

What's with the weird expertise dice progression? Seems to me like they should go to 2d8 at 6th level and 3d8 at 8th level, and then progress to 3d10 at 10th level. I don't really understand the weird pause at 2d6. Beginning at 1d4 seems weird to me too.

Still didn't fix Glancing Blow? It'd take all of 5 seconds, guys!

Seems like it's becoming a lot more complicated for not a lot of gain. At least in 4th edition, you had tactically interesting battle as a payoff for the increased complexity...

Still reading.

Grimmjow · Oct 31, 2012

whats wrong with glancing blow?

ZombieRoboNinja · Oct 31, 2012

They did fix glancing blow. Now you just need to hit AC 10 (not roll a natural 10), which means a level 1 fighter needs to roll probably a 3.

GMforPowergamers · Oct 31, 2012

I think sneak attack needs a little.more teeth (I would make it deal a little more damage) but I also want more movement based tricks, like postioning strike from 4e. One of my players tonight suggested letting a generic (tend wounds) to both fighters and rogues where with a heallers kit at the end of a fight they can roll there CS.dice, take the highest and heal that much hp damage. Limit it to one per target per fight

Walker N. Waistz · Nov 1, 2012

Salamandyr said:
4 skills and the ability to add expertise dice to skill checks.

Still a rotten trade.

Sure, rogues should do less damage in general than a fighter, but the game should still reward sneakiness by occasionally letting them do more.

Instead of, you know, "If the rogue waits for his opportunity and times his shot just right, he can do *almost* as much damage as a fighter who likely has a better weapon."

Skill monkey still needs a combat niche.

Nellisir · Nov 1, 2012

A few quick thought. I haven't studied the packets all that extensively, but I did put together all the character advancement stuff into a single chart to compare.

Having Backgrounds, Specialties, AND (deity/style/scheme/tradition) is very...fiddly. I can see quite a bit of confusion about which does what. Particularly since the class concepts overlap with both backgrounds and specialties. At the very least, I'd scale back the specialty concept to something like "suggested feat chains".
All the character classes (except the warlock) have a void at 5th level in their class features. I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of racial benefit drop in there.
I can see room for a d8 combat class that benefits Dex & Con. Encompasses duelist/swashbuckler, assassins, thuggish rogues, and rangers. This lets the rogue put their bonuses in Dex, Int, or Chr and move away from combat stuff. Probably too fiddly, though, and then you once again end up with "what does the thief do in combat?"
I could see a d8 hybrid class as well, ie bard (1e) or gish.