Oni
First Post
Fair warning, this is going to be long and rambling, if you want to just see my overall impressions, skip to the end.
I got a few of my players together yesterday and we finally got to try out the playtest rules. I ran the game and I had three players that ran the five pre-gens between them.
Player 1, a bit of a powergamer, he ran both clerics. The dwarven cleric was dubbed Iron, and the human cleric Princess Sunny.
Player 2, a very casual gamer, he chose the fighter because he wanted a simple character to play. The fighter was named Brick.
Player 3, good tactical player, he ran the rogue and the wizard. The rogue was named Jerry, and the the wizard initially named Tom, until Player 1 complained he didn't want someone that incompetent in his party and the the wizard was immediately renamed Ben.
I gave them the basic setup up that the village within a couple days travel of the caves of chaos had noticed an alarming increase in the organization of the monster tribes in the area and that several villagers had been abducted and were probably being traded among the tribes as a form of currency, you know, if they hadn't been eaten already. With that they set out for the Caves of Chaos.
I described the journey to the Caves of Chaos such that the surrounding countryside was slowly becoming slightly more twisted and malign as they traveled. The wizard immediately cast Detect Magic and I double checked it and honestly I was delighted with how simple and open the description was. I describe the whole area as faintly radiating and evil magic and they head off in the direction it seems strongest, leading them to their destination.
Arriving at the ravine the players immediately latch on to the nearest cave entrance the spot, which happened to be the goblin caves (I was happy about this, I've read enough playtest reports about the kobolds). Jerry the Rogue goes to check it out and rolls pretty bad on his stealth check, but is saved by Skill Mastery. Jerry creeps up to the cave mouth and decides to wait a few minutes and see if anything happens, and is rewarded by spotting the goblin messengers going by. He goes back and tells the others there be goblins in them there caves.
The lot of them march right up to the cave and right on in. They're trying to be at least moderately quite. I let them know they can here some faint sounds of chatter coming from the east and west and check to see if the messengers are coming back (they are). Since the messengers don't know the adventurers are there I assume they're chatting away and I give them adventures a perception check to see if they notice them coming in time to attempt to hide, which they do and they quickly split north and south to ambush them, all passing stealth checks those with the disadvantage (they grumble about how much disadvantage sucks) of heavier armor.
The goblins walk right into the pincer trap and I have everyone roll initiative, the goblins with -20. Springing out of hiding I give the party advantage. The wizard cast Light and the rest of them proceed to decimate the goblins (they all comment how awesome advantage is). The remaining goblins scream "Bree-Yark" and try to fight back, one manages to wound the fighter, 3 guards coming running from the east, unfortunately for them I ruled that they used their round to arrive and so couldn't do anything that round. The wizard cast sleep, which a quick check of the rules seems to cover a massive area, but the players decide they don't need to worry about it since they have plenty of HP, meaning they will only be slowed so the wizard drops it and putting three of the goblins to sleep. They manage to kill the two still awake and start in on Coup de Gracing the rest.
3 more goblins coming charging in at this point, not realizing just how bad the situation is, and after doing mild injury (part of if was stopped by the Iron the Clerics defender ability) most of them are put down rather handily and then the ogre and the last three goblins from the western guard station show up. I looked at the ogres HP and decided the players should have an opportunity before the ogre started mashing them so he and the goblin guards use up their actions arriving, so of course Ben the Wizard froze him in place with a Ray of Frost. And the party proceed to unload ranged attacks, all missing except Jerry the Rogue, including Princess Sunny and her Searing Light (Player 1 curses). Oh yeah, the ogre has spears, so he tries to murder the wizard who froze him in place, hits!, no Iron the Cleric intervenes. The goblins run up and form a fighting line, attacking the two dwarves, they get a couple of luck shots, one of which Iron shuts down with his defender ability. Ben keeps the ogre rooted, Jerry keeps pinging away with his sling for a decent amount of damage to the ogre, Fighter misses but wounds a goblin with his reaper ability and the cleric knocks one's jaw clean off and heals the warrior a bit. Princess Sunny misses a second Searing Light on the ogre (more swearing ensues). The goblins remember (i.e. I remember) they have bows, so they take parting shots with their maces nickle and diming Iron the Cleric and then taking advantage of the fact that there are no AO's scoot back to the ogre with the intent to use him for cover. Annoyed at the dwarven cleric for interfering the ogre chucks a spear at him, but can't defeat his solid defense. The party lands a decent amount of ranged damage on the ogre, however Ben misses his Ray of Frost and Princess Sunny gives Iron a healing potion which he quaffs. At point the remaining goblins fire on the parties front rank, softening them up a bit more and the ogre tears himself loose from his ice bonds and rushes forward and hammers Iron the cleric into the ground, first party member down. The party gets a little damage on the ogre, and Jerry the rogue gambles and tries to flank the ogre for advantage and misses horribly. Jerry now being the only target without some form of cover the goblins fire on him, one hits him and then the ogre turns around and crits him, Jerry goes down.
Suddenly things aren't looking so sunny for the party. Princess Sunny tries to drag Iron toward the cave entrance and staunch his bleeding. Ben attempts to dash in and Shocking Grasp the ogre, but fails and slips back back away from him. Brick the fighter lands a beefy blow on him and everyone pauses a moment to appreciate the fact that the fighter does some hefty damage. At this point the ogre starts to realize that he might be in trouble if he doesn't turn tail, having taken 60 some odd damage, taking a parting shot (miss) at the fighter he retreats back toward the goblin archers, who can't hit anything this round. Ben throws down another Ray of Frost locking the ogre down were he was originally rooted, at which point a small debate breaks out about facing, if the ogre was moving away obviously he should have his back facing to them and be completely helpless since the Ray of Frost was freezing movement, I dodge the question of facing and claim fighting retreat, but I find myself annoyed that it is bringing facing in which is not something I generally want to bother with. Princess Sunny runs to help Jerry, and stop him from bleeding out. Brick attempts his crossbow deciding discretion is the better part of valor, but misses. this annoys the ogre who just wanted to run away, so he picks up the spear he by chanced dropped there earlier and wings it at the fighter to little effect. And the goblin archers wound Princess Sunny. Ben tries to keep the ogre in place, but misses. Brick charges forward to fill the gap between Princess Sunny and the Ogre, but misses. And Princess Sunny Drags Jerry out of the way. The Ogre and the goblins decide they've had enough and retreat down the hallway as their action for the round, not quite making it around the bend. Ben picks off the wounded one and Brick the other goblin and Ogre manages to get away. They choose not to pursue. The party does some quick looting, grabs their fallen comrades, and the one goblin they didn't Coup de Grace and make a break for it.
The goblins take time to regroup and I let Princess Sunny roll her wilderness lore to cover their tracks and find a secure/hidden place to hole up. This was good since it let them avoid the goblin patrols that came looking for them that night. They attempt to interrogate the goblin, but realizing he doesn't speak common and that comprehend languages is bizarrely not a ritual they opt to slit his throat instead. In the morning all the injured hop out of their bedrolls as good as new (there was some quizzically looks at this, it was nice to continue, but a little silly).
The proceed back to the Caves of Chaos to wipe the goblin scum from the face of the earth. Jerry sneaks back up to the entrance this time to see the mound of corpses they left had been removed, and all that remained were goblin glyphs painted all over the walls in blood, which using his folklore he surmised must be curses and promises of vengeance and wards, and other generally superstitious stuff.
At this point, figuring the goblins surely be expecting them they march in as bold as bold and brass, ask which way the ogre had come from and then go the opposite way. It doesn't take them long to discover the eastern guard room, which the furniture has been upturned and make into makeshift barricades, and the goblins are on high alert. The spend a round dealing with the inconvenience of archers behind cover before closing the gap and slaughtering all but one, which thanks to the lack of AO's gets away up the stairs to the south, they choose not to follow fearing a trap and the goblin has enough time to convince the hobgoblins to let him in, but the hobgoblins get to arguing and can't decide what to do. When the party eventually does decide to check out the stairs, they listen at the door and give it a pass.
Turning around they head back toward the western guard post, before which they decide to douse the light spell for some reason, evidently they forgot the goblins live in the dark. The walk right into the other, better barricaded guard post and are ambushed as they come around the corner, and so they roll init at -20 (I felt like this was really clunky and slowed things down a little, don't like this mechanic). The goblins handily win and rain arrows on the dwarves, who are in front. The fighter takes a beating and after a little debate we decide that based on the rules text it seems like the dwarven cleric shouldn't be able to use his defender ability when surprised (we didn't feel really sure about this). The wizard cast light and the dwarves work together to knock back the table making up the bulk of the makeshift barricade. The remaining two goblins in the room use readied action to charge the cleric but don't accomplish much. A couple of the goblins fight, and a couple attempt to flee, I roll to see if the goblins in the living area hear the ruckus, they do. The wizard Ray of Frost one of the runners, and once more facing comes up, I give an say he was running, so he's stuck with is back to you now. The fighter kills the other runner in the hall, and the party kills all the goblins remaining in the room but one. The one stuck in the hall can't do anything since he's facing the wrong way, and the one remaining in the room flees through the secret door to the ogres cave. The adventurers kill the one in the hallway and wise decide not to follow the one that ran into the ogre's cave. Instead they take up ambush points, which is when the group investigating from the living quarters comes, downs one at range and the goblins immediately leg it back to warn their fellows. The party hears the Ogre turn the goblin that came to bother him into paste and gets ready.
I had already decided before they came back that the ogre didn't want anything else to do with them after the last encounter, so he marches over, slams the door and stick a rock in front of it. I decide he'll wait by the door for about 5 minutes to squash anyone that comes through, before he gets bored and wanders off, fortunately the party decides to wait about 10 minutes, and discover that the door is partially blocked decide it's not worth their time (since the ogre would have heard them coming and had time to ready an action before they would have been able to get through.
However the parties pause has given the goblins time to clear the noncombatants out of the living quarters and set up a barricade, when the party finally gets to the chamber they peek around the corner to see what's up. Half of them use their readied action to fire at the dwarf who poked his head out, they all miss. Ben the wizard decides to look around and cast sleep, the other half use their readied action and they all miss due to the wizard's cover. he puts 6 out of 10 down for a nap. The other assault the barricade and not to kill any goblins. The for that are awake, wake the goblin closest to them and start retreating back from the barricade, hoping to use their bows, when they party tries to cross. The party manages to kill a couple goblins over the barricade, who are still prone (I had ruled that the sleeping goblins hadn't gotten an action on the turn the were wakened). The goblins split up and flee down various tunnels, the party manages to get across the barricade and down a couple of the runners before they can get out of line of sight.
Having the living chambers to themselves they decide to loot, however as they're doing so an arrow from the western hallway reminds them there are still goblins nearby. The troop down the hall, walking right into the ambush the goblins set up the fighter eats another arrow, before they kill the two that jumped them. They steam right into the chiefs room, suffer though a round of pretty ineffectual readied action and then it's their go. Ben roast half the room with Burning Hands, killing 3 and wounding 3. The rest of the party focus fires the chief, except Iron the cleric who stays back so he can use his defender ability to protect Princess Sunny and Ben. The chief barely survives the pain train, but he and his remaining guard fall on the Fighter roughing him up and his one of his remaining mates drops the unlucky dwarf. The party kill the remaining to guards, and since it's a one off game I decide to test my players reactions a little. Knowing they can't win the chieftens remaining mates fall on the dwarf and Coup de Grace him as they curse the party. The player playing the fighter took it in stride, but the other two seemed slightly shocked I would dare do such a thing. Then the cleaned up and we broke there, because we needed dinner.
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Some of thoughts, most based on our playtesting, a couple on things I only read.
Ray of Frost is very powerful, and opens up a can of worms to boots. First off they wanted to know if it locked a creatures facing, then they wanted to either have advantage or give it disadvantage since it couldn't move properly. This spells needs serious review. Either make it clearer and less powerful or make it a little more powerful and a slotted spell and better define what it can or can't do.
I really don't like the -20 to init on surprise.
If they aren't woken up or injured, what is the duration of Sleep? Forever, till they starve to death, what?
6 second rounds are too short. You can stabilize someone in six seconds? Swap weapons and attack? This bothers me a lot actually. Also I feel it limits creativity when it comes to improvising actions, rounds should be longer so slightly more complicated and intricate actions can be done logically. It also made all the movement by the casters as they popped out and cast stuff and then ran back slightly cartoonish in my head at the rate of the action.
I felt like the starting hit points were slightly too high, the party got themselves in trouble at a couple of points, but it took quite a lot of opposition to make that happen. They were standing on a pile of corpses before they had to retreat.
Everyone felt the classes were fairly well balanced and had something to contribute.
The pared down and simplified fighter was well received, it was exactly that the player wanted.
I felt like the parties base damage was a little too high, unless it was a magic missile or a miss it was they never failed to kill a regular goblin, except I think 1 time. I wasn't super keen on this.
Overall the experience was pretty enjoyable. As a DM I wish I had more guidance on adjudicating attempted combat maneuvers like disarms and trips and the like. And there was some frustration with the swingyness of the D20, especially when the cleric missed two Searing Lights back to back.
Why does Coup de Grace work on unconscious targets, but not paralyzed ones?
How does the cylinder AoE work? My impression is that should bascially work as a beam going straight up or down from any given point in the radius, but the description seemed to imply it radiated out from the very center of either the top or the bottom of the cylinder, which has very different implications for line of effect.
What happens if a creature's HP changes while under the effect of a spell that has already been cast of which the effect is governed by their current HP total?
Why is there a high limitation on Mage Hand? It seems very arbitrary.
Which is the correct method for finding traps, the the finding traps rules on pages 6 and 7 or the Search rules on pages 7 and 8? If the former, what is the downside to looking for traps? Do you move slower, if so, how much?
When characters are surprised and haven't acted yet, can they use Reactions? I read "one side acts while the other is caught off guard and unable to act for a critical moment" as no, because it also made sense, but wasn't sure because it wasn't listed under the effects.
Searing Light was a huge let down a miss, I feel like if you're going blow a single target limited resource like that spell, it should get a little something on a miss.
We really liked Advantage and Disadvantage.
I got a few of my players together yesterday and we finally got to try out the playtest rules. I ran the game and I had three players that ran the five pre-gens between them.
Player 1, a bit of a powergamer, he ran both clerics. The dwarven cleric was dubbed Iron, and the human cleric Princess Sunny.
Player 2, a very casual gamer, he chose the fighter because he wanted a simple character to play. The fighter was named Brick.
Player 3, good tactical player, he ran the rogue and the wizard. The rogue was named Jerry, and the the wizard initially named Tom, until Player 1 complained he didn't want someone that incompetent in his party and the the wizard was immediately renamed Ben.
I gave them the basic setup up that the village within a couple days travel of the caves of chaos had noticed an alarming increase in the organization of the monster tribes in the area and that several villagers had been abducted and were probably being traded among the tribes as a form of currency, you know, if they hadn't been eaten already. With that they set out for the Caves of Chaos.
I described the journey to the Caves of Chaos such that the surrounding countryside was slowly becoming slightly more twisted and malign as they traveled. The wizard immediately cast Detect Magic and I double checked it and honestly I was delighted with how simple and open the description was. I describe the whole area as faintly radiating and evil magic and they head off in the direction it seems strongest, leading them to their destination.
Arriving at the ravine the players immediately latch on to the nearest cave entrance the spot, which happened to be the goblin caves (I was happy about this, I've read enough playtest reports about the kobolds). Jerry the Rogue goes to check it out and rolls pretty bad on his stealth check, but is saved by Skill Mastery. Jerry creeps up to the cave mouth and decides to wait a few minutes and see if anything happens, and is rewarded by spotting the goblin messengers going by. He goes back and tells the others there be goblins in them there caves.
The lot of them march right up to the cave and right on in. They're trying to be at least moderately quite. I let them know they can here some faint sounds of chatter coming from the east and west and check to see if the messengers are coming back (they are). Since the messengers don't know the adventurers are there I assume they're chatting away and I give them adventures a perception check to see if they notice them coming in time to attempt to hide, which they do and they quickly split north and south to ambush them, all passing stealth checks those with the disadvantage (they grumble about how much disadvantage sucks) of heavier armor.
The goblins walk right into the pincer trap and I have everyone roll initiative, the goblins with -20. Springing out of hiding I give the party advantage. The wizard cast Light and the rest of them proceed to decimate the goblins (they all comment how awesome advantage is). The remaining goblins scream "Bree-Yark" and try to fight back, one manages to wound the fighter, 3 guards coming running from the east, unfortunately for them I ruled that they used their round to arrive and so couldn't do anything that round. The wizard cast sleep, which a quick check of the rules seems to cover a massive area, but the players decide they don't need to worry about it since they have plenty of HP, meaning they will only be slowed so the wizard drops it and putting three of the goblins to sleep. They manage to kill the two still awake and start in on Coup de Gracing the rest.
3 more goblins coming charging in at this point, not realizing just how bad the situation is, and after doing mild injury (part of if was stopped by the Iron the Clerics defender ability) most of them are put down rather handily and then the ogre and the last three goblins from the western guard station show up. I looked at the ogres HP and decided the players should have an opportunity before the ogre started mashing them so he and the goblin guards use up their actions arriving, so of course Ben the Wizard froze him in place with a Ray of Frost. And the party proceed to unload ranged attacks, all missing except Jerry the Rogue, including Princess Sunny and her Searing Light (Player 1 curses). Oh yeah, the ogre has spears, so he tries to murder the wizard who froze him in place, hits!, no Iron the Cleric intervenes. The goblins run up and form a fighting line, attacking the two dwarves, they get a couple of luck shots, one of which Iron shuts down with his defender ability. Ben keeps the ogre rooted, Jerry keeps pinging away with his sling for a decent amount of damage to the ogre, Fighter misses but wounds a goblin with his reaper ability and the cleric knocks one's jaw clean off and heals the warrior a bit. Princess Sunny misses a second Searing Light on the ogre (more swearing ensues). The goblins remember (i.e. I remember) they have bows, so they take parting shots with their maces nickle and diming Iron the Cleric and then taking advantage of the fact that there are no AO's scoot back to the ogre with the intent to use him for cover. Annoyed at the dwarven cleric for interfering the ogre chucks a spear at him, but can't defeat his solid defense. The party lands a decent amount of ranged damage on the ogre, however Ben misses his Ray of Frost and Princess Sunny gives Iron a healing potion which he quaffs. At point the remaining goblins fire on the parties front rank, softening them up a bit more and the ogre tears himself loose from his ice bonds and rushes forward and hammers Iron the cleric into the ground, first party member down. The party gets a little damage on the ogre, and Jerry the rogue gambles and tries to flank the ogre for advantage and misses horribly. Jerry now being the only target without some form of cover the goblins fire on him, one hits him and then the ogre turns around and crits him, Jerry goes down.
Suddenly things aren't looking so sunny for the party. Princess Sunny tries to drag Iron toward the cave entrance and staunch his bleeding. Ben attempts to dash in and Shocking Grasp the ogre, but fails and slips back back away from him. Brick the fighter lands a beefy blow on him and everyone pauses a moment to appreciate the fact that the fighter does some hefty damage. At this point the ogre starts to realize that he might be in trouble if he doesn't turn tail, having taken 60 some odd damage, taking a parting shot (miss) at the fighter he retreats back toward the goblin archers, who can't hit anything this round. Ben throws down another Ray of Frost locking the ogre down were he was originally rooted, at which point a small debate breaks out about facing, if the ogre was moving away obviously he should have his back facing to them and be completely helpless since the Ray of Frost was freezing movement, I dodge the question of facing and claim fighting retreat, but I find myself annoyed that it is bringing facing in which is not something I generally want to bother with. Princess Sunny runs to help Jerry, and stop him from bleeding out. Brick attempts his crossbow deciding discretion is the better part of valor, but misses. this annoys the ogre who just wanted to run away, so he picks up the spear he by chanced dropped there earlier and wings it at the fighter to little effect. And the goblin archers wound Princess Sunny. Ben tries to keep the ogre in place, but misses. Brick charges forward to fill the gap between Princess Sunny and the Ogre, but misses. And Princess Sunny Drags Jerry out of the way. The Ogre and the goblins decide they've had enough and retreat down the hallway as their action for the round, not quite making it around the bend. Ben picks off the wounded one and Brick the other goblin and Ogre manages to get away. They choose not to pursue. The party does some quick looting, grabs their fallen comrades, and the one goblin they didn't Coup de Grace and make a break for it.
The goblins take time to regroup and I let Princess Sunny roll her wilderness lore to cover their tracks and find a secure/hidden place to hole up. This was good since it let them avoid the goblin patrols that came looking for them that night. They attempt to interrogate the goblin, but realizing he doesn't speak common and that comprehend languages is bizarrely not a ritual they opt to slit his throat instead. In the morning all the injured hop out of their bedrolls as good as new (there was some quizzically looks at this, it was nice to continue, but a little silly).
The proceed back to the Caves of Chaos to wipe the goblin scum from the face of the earth. Jerry sneaks back up to the entrance this time to see the mound of corpses they left had been removed, and all that remained were goblin glyphs painted all over the walls in blood, which using his folklore he surmised must be curses and promises of vengeance and wards, and other generally superstitious stuff.
At this point, figuring the goblins surely be expecting them they march in as bold as bold and brass, ask which way the ogre had come from and then go the opposite way. It doesn't take them long to discover the eastern guard room, which the furniture has been upturned and make into makeshift barricades, and the goblins are on high alert. The spend a round dealing with the inconvenience of archers behind cover before closing the gap and slaughtering all but one, which thanks to the lack of AO's gets away up the stairs to the south, they choose not to follow fearing a trap and the goblin has enough time to convince the hobgoblins to let him in, but the hobgoblins get to arguing and can't decide what to do. When the party eventually does decide to check out the stairs, they listen at the door and give it a pass.
Turning around they head back toward the western guard post, before which they decide to douse the light spell for some reason, evidently they forgot the goblins live in the dark. The walk right into the other, better barricaded guard post and are ambushed as they come around the corner, and so they roll init at -20 (I felt like this was really clunky and slowed things down a little, don't like this mechanic). The goblins handily win and rain arrows on the dwarves, who are in front. The fighter takes a beating and after a little debate we decide that based on the rules text it seems like the dwarven cleric shouldn't be able to use his defender ability when surprised (we didn't feel really sure about this). The wizard cast light and the dwarves work together to knock back the table making up the bulk of the makeshift barricade. The remaining two goblins in the room use readied action to charge the cleric but don't accomplish much. A couple of the goblins fight, and a couple attempt to flee, I roll to see if the goblins in the living area hear the ruckus, they do. The wizard Ray of Frost one of the runners, and once more facing comes up, I give an say he was running, so he's stuck with is back to you now. The fighter kills the other runner in the hall, and the party kills all the goblins remaining in the room but one. The one stuck in the hall can't do anything since he's facing the wrong way, and the one remaining in the room flees through the secret door to the ogres cave. The adventurers kill the one in the hallway and wise decide not to follow the one that ran into the ogre's cave. Instead they take up ambush points, which is when the group investigating from the living quarters comes, downs one at range and the goblins immediately leg it back to warn their fellows. The party hears the Ogre turn the goblin that came to bother him into paste and gets ready.
I had already decided before they came back that the ogre didn't want anything else to do with them after the last encounter, so he marches over, slams the door and stick a rock in front of it. I decide he'll wait by the door for about 5 minutes to squash anyone that comes through, before he gets bored and wanders off, fortunately the party decides to wait about 10 minutes, and discover that the door is partially blocked decide it's not worth their time (since the ogre would have heard them coming and had time to ready an action before they would have been able to get through.
However the parties pause has given the goblins time to clear the noncombatants out of the living quarters and set up a barricade, when the party finally gets to the chamber they peek around the corner to see what's up. Half of them use their readied action to fire at the dwarf who poked his head out, they all miss. Ben the wizard decides to look around and cast sleep, the other half use their readied action and they all miss due to the wizard's cover. he puts 6 out of 10 down for a nap. The other assault the barricade and not to kill any goblins. The for that are awake, wake the goblin closest to them and start retreating back from the barricade, hoping to use their bows, when they party tries to cross. The party manages to kill a couple goblins over the barricade, who are still prone (I had ruled that the sleeping goblins hadn't gotten an action on the turn the were wakened). The goblins split up and flee down various tunnels, the party manages to get across the barricade and down a couple of the runners before they can get out of line of sight.
Having the living chambers to themselves they decide to loot, however as they're doing so an arrow from the western hallway reminds them there are still goblins nearby. The troop down the hall, walking right into the ambush the goblins set up the fighter eats another arrow, before they kill the two that jumped them. They steam right into the chiefs room, suffer though a round of pretty ineffectual readied action and then it's their go. Ben roast half the room with Burning Hands, killing 3 and wounding 3. The rest of the party focus fires the chief, except Iron the cleric who stays back so he can use his defender ability to protect Princess Sunny and Ben. The chief barely survives the pain train, but he and his remaining guard fall on the Fighter roughing him up and his one of his remaining mates drops the unlucky dwarf. The party kill the remaining to guards, and since it's a one off game I decide to test my players reactions a little. Knowing they can't win the chieftens remaining mates fall on the dwarf and Coup de Grace him as they curse the party. The player playing the fighter took it in stride, but the other two seemed slightly shocked I would dare do such a thing. Then the cleaned up and we broke there, because we needed dinner.
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Some of thoughts, most based on our playtesting, a couple on things I only read.
Ray of Frost is very powerful, and opens up a can of worms to boots. First off they wanted to know if it locked a creatures facing, then they wanted to either have advantage or give it disadvantage since it couldn't move properly. This spells needs serious review. Either make it clearer and less powerful or make it a little more powerful and a slotted spell and better define what it can or can't do.
I really don't like the -20 to init on surprise.
If they aren't woken up or injured, what is the duration of Sleep? Forever, till they starve to death, what?
6 second rounds are too short. You can stabilize someone in six seconds? Swap weapons and attack? This bothers me a lot actually. Also I feel it limits creativity when it comes to improvising actions, rounds should be longer so slightly more complicated and intricate actions can be done logically. It also made all the movement by the casters as they popped out and cast stuff and then ran back slightly cartoonish in my head at the rate of the action.
I felt like the starting hit points were slightly too high, the party got themselves in trouble at a couple of points, but it took quite a lot of opposition to make that happen. They were standing on a pile of corpses before they had to retreat.
Everyone felt the classes were fairly well balanced and had something to contribute.
The pared down and simplified fighter was well received, it was exactly that the player wanted.
I felt like the parties base damage was a little too high, unless it was a magic missile or a miss it was they never failed to kill a regular goblin, except I think 1 time. I wasn't super keen on this.
Overall the experience was pretty enjoyable. As a DM I wish I had more guidance on adjudicating attempted combat maneuvers like disarms and trips and the like. And there was some frustration with the swingyness of the D20, especially when the cleric missed two Searing Lights back to back.
Why does Coup de Grace work on unconscious targets, but not paralyzed ones?
How does the cylinder AoE work? My impression is that should bascially work as a beam going straight up or down from any given point in the radius, but the description seemed to imply it radiated out from the very center of either the top or the bottom of the cylinder, which has very different implications for line of effect.
What happens if a creature's HP changes while under the effect of a spell that has already been cast of which the effect is governed by their current HP total?
Why is there a high limitation on Mage Hand? It seems very arbitrary.
Which is the correct method for finding traps, the the finding traps rules on pages 6 and 7 or the Search rules on pages 7 and 8? If the former, what is the downside to looking for traps? Do you move slower, if so, how much?
When characters are surprised and haven't acted yet, can they use Reactions? I read "one side acts while the other is caught off guard and unable to act for a critical moment" as no, because it also made sense, but wasn't sure because it wasn't listed under the effects.
Searing Light was a huge let down a miss, I feel like if you're going blow a single target limited resource like that spell, it should get a little something on a miss.
We really liked Advantage and Disadvantage.
