Playtest report

[Fieari]

So I had a playtest of the rules today. Started on Alabaster's Tournament, just as an excuse to pit the guys against some foes and see how it turned out. Only went through three combats, two as Hero-Deities (20 HD), one as Quasi-Deities (30 HD).

Three players. The first was a Bard 20(/Rogue 10) with the Moon and War domains. The second was a Sorcerer 20(/30) with the War and Thunder domains. The third was a Barbarian 20(/30) with the Swords and Luck domains.

First thing I pitted them against was a standard Ioun Golem. CR 21. These guys are ECL 35 right now, with full equipment, so it should be no problem for them, right? WRONG. I don't know where exactly the CR breaks down, but the Ioun Golem is WELL above CR 21. I mean none of my players had even a remote chance against it, even after learning the shatter weakness. They could only hit on a nat 20, it decimated them with hypnosis and just plain attacks, and so forth. Maybe it was because the sorcerer didn't take any conjuration attack spells? But the AC is just absurdly high. The fighters didn't have a chance, and golems are where fighters are supposed to shine, given that the magic users can't use most of their stuff!

As ECL 50 Quasi-Deities, we looked back at the stats, and they'd have a chance at that point. But Not at 35!

So I called that one a wash and set them against the CR 25 Garm. That was a fun little battle where they ran around trading hits, dealing with the fire breath and trips, and experimenting with their abilities. Not difficult, but a fun encounter. Afterwards, I gave 'em ten more levels and another DvR.

The last fight of the evening was a lot of fun, even though I goofed horribly when it came to running it properly. It was the Demon Prince of Secrets, but I forgot to use the Touch attack AND the Artifact Crown! Ah well. The Six Shadows Ability made for a fascinating fight as they used delays and readied actions to keep popping the images every round so the damage dealers could actually hit. His AC is high enough that only the first one or two iterative attacks had any real chance of hitting, and while his attack bonus is nicely high so he hits a lot, his damage output isn't actually all that high, so barring criticals it wasn't too bad.

Demise Unseen is nasty and fun. Sure, it turns a player into a mere ghoul, but it's a ghoul still wearing artifacts! Whee! It wasn't until the combat was over that they figured out that the Sorcerer hadn't been mind controlled or enchanted, but rather KILLED and replaced.

The Demon Prince's SR effectively made him magic immune, like a golem, unfortunately, but by this time he'd picked up Melf's Acid Arrow.

Which leads me to comment: I let him put a full set of Automatic Metamagic Capacity in one of his four artifacts, on a +1 equivalent basis per feat, and I'm worried that this may have been a little too powerful. He had +23 levels of metamagic at Hero-Deity level. That's quite a bit. Granted, the foes were making their saves for halves well enough, but still... half of 800 damage is still nasty!

Another thought. I let the Barbarian have his artifact weapon be very "Ability" heavy, beyond the halfway mark. This doesn't work. It makes him suck. His attack roll was LESS than the Bard's (who admitably had the war domain, but still!). He could barely hit the Demon Prince on a good roll on his first attack! I would say hardcode in the rule that at least half the total + on the weapon MUST go to enhancement, so that players don't shoot themselves in the foot like that anymore.

All in all, they enjoyed it, but found the character creation process both too long, and too rushed-- I was trying to get to the actual combat, so I was pushing them to finish up, and so they only had three hours to build. Three hours though... that's not insignificant. Leveling up was a lot faster though... only about 15 minutes. So that was reasonable.

Any questions about our playtest?

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Very interesting...
The Ioun Golem is very nasty for its CR. Lots of Immunities, high AC & Saves, etc. Low on HP though. I am surprised the players had a hard time with it. It depends on what spells the sorcerer & Bard took. (Did they "put all their eggs in one basket" and not prepare for situations where their main tactic was ineffective?) Also, the level of specialization each character had might matter. IE A fighter exclusively focusing on weapon-focus & high strength to hit often will probably hit almost any foe within 10 levels of himself. Also, their tactics could be a major factor, as could the arena itself. With 1.5 spellcasters, they should have been able to power the barbarian up to pound the thing. Again, depends on the spells taken.

3 hours of character creation... I can believe it. They had to think of every "what would be cool" character, and then, once they started making that character, they probably got side tracked by other ideas. Tons of options are available at that level. Still, it depends on the level of experience of the player & how diligently they work. I can throw a 20th or 30th level character together in about 30 minutes, less if its a pure-melee type with just 4 artifacts. A friend of mine took about 6 hours to make a first level character in a game I ran. A 1st level human witch. He must have gone through every book I have looking for feats. He knows D&D well and is an experienced gamer. I think in the end he decided on feats that gave him purely RP benefits. So I don't think 3 hours is unusual. Heck, I would probably spend an hour pondering what to play. (Being an arena-type game, Fighter would probably be the simplest and most effective character. Tons of feats, but all of them go towards my mental list of every feat that lets you "hit things better")

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Fieari mate!

So I had a playtest of the rules today. Started on Alabaster's Tournament, just as an excuse to pit the guys against some foes and see how it turned out.

Cool I appreciate the feedback!

Only went through three combats, two as Hero-Deities (20 HD), one as Quasi-Deities (30 HD).

Three players. The first was a Bard 20(/Rogue 10) with the Moon and War domains. The second was a Sorcerer 20(/30) with the War and Thunder domains. The third was a Barbarian 20(/30) with the Swords and Luck domains.

Okay, nice.

First thing I pitted them against was a standard Ioun Golem. CR 21. These guys are ECL 35 right now, with full equipment, so it should be no problem for them, right? WRONG. I don't know where exactly the CR breaks down, but the Ioun Golem is WELL above CR 21. I mean none of my players had even a remote chance against it, even after learning the shatter weakness. They could only hit on a nat 20, it decimated them with hypnosis and just plain attacks, and so forth. Maybe it was because the sorcerer didn't take any conjuration attack spells? But the AC is just absurdly high. The fighters didn't have a chance, and golems are where fighters are supposed to shine, given that the magic users can't use most of their stuff!

As ECL 50 Quasi-Deities, we looked back at the stats, and they'd have a chance at that point. But Not at 35!

The Ioun Golem is a really weird monster to rate. Construct Hit Dice has a really low factor, but it has a ton of abilities that put it about 5 times over its Hit Dice factor, which is probably where the problems arise.

I like giving golem's high AC, gives the impression attacks are just bouncing off them.

That said, its one of those monsters that can easily be defeated if you know how.

So I called that one a wash and set them against the CR 25 Garm. That was a fun little battle where they ran around trading hits, dealing with the fire breath and trips, and experimenting with their abilities. Not difficult, but a fun encounter. Afterwards, I gave 'em ten more levels and another DvR.

As you would expect, its a pretty straightforward "Meat and Potatoes" kind of monster.

The last fight of the evening was a lot of fun, even though I goofed horribly when it came to running it properly. It was the Demon Prince of Secrets, but I forgot to use the Touch attack AND the Artifact Crown! Ah well.

DOH!

The Six Shadows Ability made for a fascinating fight as they used delays and readied actions to keep popping the images every round so the damage dealers could actually hit. His AC is high enough that only the first one or two iterative attacks had any real chance of hitting, and while his attack bonus is nicely high so he hits a lot, his damage output isn't actually all that high, so barring criticals it wasn't too bad.

How do you think it would have went if you had remembered the touch attack and Beholder Crown? Should have been a close fight.

Demise Unseen is nasty and fun. Sure, it turns a player into a mere ghoul, but it's a ghoul still wearing artifacts! Whee! It wasn't until the combat was over that they figured out that the Sorcerer hadn't been mind controlled or enchanted, but rather KILLED and replaced.

It is one of the cooler epic spells.

The Demon Prince's SR effectively made him magic immune, like a golem, unfortunately, but by this time he'd picked up Melf's Acid Arrow.

I'll have some really cool Metamagic in the Grimoire - Anti-Spell Resistance for example.

Which leads me to comment: I let him put a full set of Automatic Metamagic Capacity in one of his four artifacts, on a +1 equivalent basis per feat, and I'm worried that this may have been a little too powerful. He had +23 levels of metamagic at Hero-Deity level. That's quite a bit. Granted, the foes were making their saves for halves well enough, but still... half of 800 damage is still nasty!

A few points of note.

1. I wouldn't advise allowing more than +1 AMC per 2 levels above 20, +1 AMC per divine rank...which would be +9 in this case.

2. To use +23 AMC he should really have Charisma 42 or better...and I am debating if perhaps DDQ should require +2 [Ability Score] per AMC raise, meaning you would have needed Charisma 65.

Another thought. I let the Barbarian have his artifact weapon be very "Ability" heavy, beyond the halfway mark. This doesn't work. It makes him suck. His attack roll was LESS than the Bard's (who admitably had the war domain, but still!). He could barely hit the Demon Prince on a good roll on his first attack!

This is part of the annoyance of the EPIC attack bonus.

Personally I wouldn't disapprove of continuing Base Attack Bonus, removing Iterative Attacks and implementing Metamartial Maneouvers wholesale.

I would say hardcode in the rule that at least half the total + on the weapon MUST go to enhancement, so that players don't shoot themselves in the foot like that anymore.

You know I always advocate a weapon needing an enhancement bonus equal to or greater than its sum total of special abilities. But I see what you mean about

All in all, they enjoyed it, but found the character creation process both too long, and too rushed -- I was trying to get to the actual combat, so I was pushing them to finish up, and so they only had three hours to build. Three hours though... that's not insignificant.

Can you break that down at all? What exactly was the hold up? Feats, Skills, Items, Spells, something else, all of the above?

Leveling up was a lot faster though... only about 15 minutes. So that was reasonable.

Okay.

Any questions about our playtest?

See above. Thanks again mate, much appreciated.

 

[Fieari]

There were two big holdups, the lesser of which was picking the domains. To be honest, they were less interested in the cool powers the domains gave them, and more interested in avoiding the weaknesses that came with 'em, and were going through searching for the least significant (in their minds) drawbacks. That took a good hour at least. This is an unavoidable aspect of character building for new players, I'd say, and was actually a lot of fun as they imagined the possibilities of what their characters could now do. Visions of slaughtering armies of sub-epic foes (since that's all they've ever seen before).

But the biggest holdup was calculating all the bonuses. Or, rather I should say, RECALCULATING all the bonuses. I think it was the order we were building things, because they did 32 point buy plus 5 stat ups from HD, and they calculated their stuff. Then they had the divine bonuses added, and recalculated. Then they got artifacts, and recalculated.

When it came to leveling up, they all groaned with the prospect of having to recalculate all the bonuses again. Particularly the barbarian, having to calculate base and rage, and since the abilities taken also affect these things... it got a little hairy.

Another thing that took time was picking feats. I asked them to pick feats only from the "Feat Packages" listed to try and keep things fast, but there were feats left over sometimes. And since they picked feats AFTER all the above, the feats also led to another round of recalculating bonuses. If we were using excel spreadsheets instead of paper, it would have been a lot faster, but all the re-adding up... um... added up.

Now, if I had actually used the touch and the crown, I think that the fight would have been a lot closer. As I said, Kabiri wasn't doing much damage per hit, but he hit on almost every iterative attack, almost every round. And Demise Unseen worked the first time. So he was steadily whittling down their HP, but they were doing it to him a lot faster, since while they missed a lot... and I mean A LOT, they did a lot more damage when they did get to hit.

The touch would have rectified his damage output, but the crown would have made them afraid. They'd be able to deal with it... there was lots of cover, and of course teleport at will helps a lot... but I think they'd have died a couple times and thus required wishes to come back, expending resources in the process. Death really isn't a big deal, but it does cost XP (or quintessence). It would have forced them to retreat and make hit and runs instead of constantly wailing on the guy.

By the way, XP is a lot less valuable than quintessence. I'd make the XP/Quintessence exchange rate something other than 1:1. 100 Quintessence is a BIG DEAL, especially at the lower divine levels, and a wish is supposed to cost a thousand? 10:1 | XP:Q would makes sense to me.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Fieari mate!

There were two big holdups, the lesser of which was picking the domains. To be honest, they were less interested in the cool powers the domains gave them, and more interested in avoiding the weaknesses that came with 'em, and were going through searching for the least significant (in their minds) drawbacks. That took a good hour at least.

In many ways I suppose its our weaknesses that define us, perhaps that applies to D&D characters too.

This is an unavoidable aspect of character building for new players, I'd say, and was actually a lot of fun as they imagined the possibilities of what their characters could now do. Visions of slaughtering armies of sub-epic foes (since that's all they've ever seen before).

I suppose if you can't reduce the time taken for character creation, then at least make that creation fun.

Out of curiousity did you roll randomly for their DM chosen Portfolio?

But the biggest holdup was calculating all the bonuses. Or, rather I should say, RECALCULATING all the bonuses. I think it was the order we were building things, because they did 32 point buy plus 5 stat ups from HD, and they calculated their stuff. Then they had the divine bonuses added, and recalculated. Then they got artifacts, and recalculated.

Thats surprising.

When it came to leveling up, they all groaned with the prospect of having to recalculate all the bonuses again. Particularly the barbarian, having to calculate base and rage, and since the abilities taken also affect these things... it got a little hairy.

You see I thought that would have been pretty straightforward.

Another thing that took time was picking feats. I asked them to pick feats only from the "Feat Packages" listed to try and keep things fast, but there were feats left over sometimes. And since they picked feats AFTER all the above, the feats also led to another round of recalculating bonuses. If we were using excel spreadsheets instead of paper, it would have been a lot faster, but all the re-adding up... um... added up.

Feat Trees would really help here.

Now, if I had actually used the touch and the crown, I think that the fight would have been a lot closer. As I said, Kabiri wasn't doing much damage per hit, but he hit on almost every iterative attack, almost every round. And Demise Unseen worked the first time. So he was steadily whittling down their HP, but they were doing it to him a lot faster, since while they missed a lot... and I mean A LOT, they did a lot more damage when they did get to hit.

On paper it looks like 50/50 with maybe a slight nod to your players.

The touch would have rectified his damage output, but the crown would have made them afraid. They'd be able to deal with it... there was lots of cover, and of course teleport at will helps a lot... but I think they'd have died a couple times and thus required wishes to come back, expending resources in the process. Death really isn't a big deal, but it does cost XP (or quintessence). It would have forced them to retreat and make hit and runs instead of constantly wailing on the guy.

I'm still not convinced allowing immortals to be resurrected is a great idea.

By the way, XP is a lot less valuable than quintessence. I'd make the XP/Quintessence exchange rate something other than 1:1. 100 Quintessence is a BIG DEAL, especially at the lower divine levels, and a wish is supposed to cost a thousand? 10:1 | XP:Q would makes sense to me.

I'll consider it. I was thinking even a 25:1 ratio might be interesting.

625 GP = 25 XP = 1 QP

 

[Fieari]

I suppose if you can't reduce the time taken for character creation, then at least make that creation fun.

Out of curiousity did you roll randomly for their DM chosen Portfolio?

Nope. I let 'em pick both. For the same reason I use point buy for stats instead of rolling. I don't believe in randomness at character creation, only during the game itself.

On paper it looks like 50/50 with maybe a slight nod to your players.

Yeah, sounds about right.

I'm still not convinced allowing immortals to be resurrected is a great idea.

Even with wish? I don't mean via the ressurect spell, I mean with wishes, costing XP or Quintessence. That seems pretty reasonable to me...

Besides, they weren't getting killed on their "home plane" anyway. I was making 'em use a wish to recover to reform back home.

I'll consider it. I was thinking even a 25:1 ratio might be interesting.

625 GP = 25 XP = 1 QP

40 Quintessence per wish sounds fairly reasonable. You can weigh the value of how many wishes it's worth to fight a particular foe.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya matey!

Nope. I let 'em pick both. For the same reason I use point buy for stats instead of rolling. I don't believe in randomness at character creation, only during the game itself.

Yes, but they were creating characters from scratch with no backstory and thus nothing for the DM to base their second Portfolio on - the one they think best embodies the character.

Even with wish? I don't mean via the ressurect spell, I mean with wishes, costing XP or Quintessence. That seems pretty reasonable to me...

I suppose you could use a wish to speed up the rejuvenation process. But it would take more than one.

Perhaps one to reduce the time factor by one step, ten wishes to reduce it by two steps (weeks to hours for example) etc.

However, quasi-deities or below don't necessarily get a home plane and can thus be resurrected.

Besides, they weren't getting killed on their "home plane" anyway. I was making 'em use a wish to recover to reform back home.

Having the manifestation destroyed banishes an immortal from that plane for a century (unless the destroyer revokes the banishment).

That said, maybe this whole resurrection/rejuvenation thing needs better thought out I don't like the idea of immortals sitting out months of the game. It might be better to have something akin to the effects after imprisonment. The immortal reforms immediately but needs a certain amount of time to get back to full power...?

40 Quintessence per wish sounds fairly reasonable. You can weigh the value of how many wishes it's worth to fight a particular foe.

I was thinking more along the lines of 200 QP/wish.