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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DND_Reborn" data-source="post: 8147091" data-attributes="member: 6987520">PLAY TEST SESSION #2 Results:Wow, this is going great! I was planning on just doing this as a second playtest, a couple combats maybe, and then move on to playing our Frostmaiden campaign today and after we did one mock combat (see below), the new players who I introduced the system to for the first time LOVED it so much they all agreed to use it for our entire session today! And it went SO incredibly well, I would argue our combat flowed faster than our old regular roll-once and repeat each round. It is so hard to explain, maybe it just seemed to be faster in real time, but man it was crazily successful! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Scenario: Dave (Human Barbarian 7, Frenzy) and Garyck (Dwarf Cleric 7, Life) are traveling between two towns in Icewind Dale. A young white dragon erupts from under the nearby snow and attacks the heroes![SPOILER="Narrative of Round 1"]Garyck, ever alert for danger, notices the breaking surface of the snow just as the dragon bursts from it's icy hiding place. He backs away from the danger, calling on the might of his god as a shaft of radiance light flies from his palm towards the monster, which neck snaked to the side to narrowly avoid the beam. Daunted, Garyck moves further away from the beast as its forefeet land, its massive weight shaking the ground nearby.In an act of pure visceral fury, Dave cries out, stumble a step backwards as he flings his handaxe into the dragon's hide. He continues to backstep to face this mortal enemy alongside his friend. He grasps the haft of his mighty battleaxe, bracing himself for the fight.The monster lurches forward, its tail sweeping a wide path in the snow and ice, its wings pumping as it pulls back and its chest expands. As the dragon's mouth opens wide, a blast of frosted death rolls towards the heroes, their faces determined to meet this threat.Dave and Garyck turn their shoulders into the brunt of the assault as the shards of ice tear into their sides and legs, puncturing armor and drawing blood that mixes with the snow at their feet.The powerful barbarian closes the short distance to the dragon's head, determined to keep the beast at bay and away from his ally. He swings his axe, but the stroke goes wide and he knows he might be facing death at last.[/SPOILER][SPOILER="Play-by-play Outline"]Round 1: (Bold numbers represent initiative roll totals.)(Note: if the new rolls are equal to or higher than the current initiative, the creature acts immediately.)The situation requires Wisdom (Perception) checks versus the dragon's Dexterity (Stealth) check. Garyck is not surprised, but Dave failed the check and is surprised so will not act the first round.Note: Initiative modifiers apply only to the first roll of the round.When they roll initiative, Garyk gets 15, Dave gets 11, and the Dragon gets a 1. Note: Dave with Feral Instinct has advantage on all of his initiative rolls.15: Garyck moves back 20 feet so he is 40 feet away from the dragon and out of it's breath weapon. He has 10 feet of move left due to Squat Nimbleness, and rolls for his next act (12).12: Garyck casts guiding bolt, but he misses. He rolls for his next act (12) and decides to move back his last 10 feet (50 feet away from the dragon). [He has his bonus action left, but nothing to do with it.]11: Dave decides to Rage, using his Feral Instinct to offset the surprise of the round so he can act. This is his bonus action, so he rolls for his next act (16). Since this is higher than (or equal to) the current initiative, he gets to act immediately. He grabs his handaxe (free object interaction) and throws it (attack, hitting). He still has his movement and Extra attack, rolls for his next act (18) and again, acts immediately, so decides to fall back next two Garyck, using 30 feet of his 40 speed. He rolls for his next act (12), but decides to wait as he has no other handaxe to throw and wants to see what the dragon will do.  1: The dragon finally gets to act and moves up 40 feet, so it is only 10 feet from the heroes. It cannot roll lower for initiative, so there is no need and it takes its next action, breathing its cold breath on the PCs. Both make their saving throws. [It has used up all of its movement and its action, so has nothing left to do.]  1: Dave luckily still has 10 feet of movement left, so moves to engage the dragon (he also can't roll lower, so their is no need) and uses his Extra Attack to attack the dragon with his battleaxe, using but misses.End of Round 1.Due to how the rolls landed, the PCs did a lot of actions "at once" more like normal initiative, but as the later rounds unfolded it was mixed up more like in the first playtest.[/SPOILER]The battle took four more rounds, with Dave using reckless attack along with great weapon master's -5/+10 option (we house-rule this to once per round) and using his frenzy to attack with his bonus action. Garyck kept Dave going by using Healing Word as his bonus actions and attempting Toll the Deads after casting Bless in round 2.This was our only playtest combat, but both players liked how the later rounds (especially) mixed up the action so much they agreed when the other player arrived (who playtested it last week) to use it for the whole session.It was pretty cool and we're going to keep using it and evaluating it in our normal game session. I'll keep you posted but we won't play again for a couples weeks probably--so it will be a while. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Hope you enjoyed reading about another test. Please offer comments and feedback as usual, and thanks for your interest! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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