December Playtests: Druid, Invoker, AV2, and Mercykillers! (merged)

[Cadfan]

I agree with Verys. I'd rather see one playtest a month than see three playtests one month and none the next two.

 

[Verys Arkon]

...You are a terrible person. Playtests are the best things ever, and this is a great spread. Wizards, do not listen to this crazy person.

Begrudgingly, I'll admit I'd like more articles on the results of playtests, like official revisions of both classes so far for people playing them.

Yeah, sacrilegious to not want more playtest articles, I know I love them too. But I'm looking at the rest of the magazine, and besides drafts of classes that will appear completed elsewhere, there really isn't much left.

Think about it like this: If you go back to December's Dragon in 2 years, an issue you've paid for, how much of it is going to be still useful? Almost half of the significant content is going to be useless in the future. It is a bit of a cop out too, since they've done the work for the playtest as part of another product. Now, I'm sure going through the feedback a playtest generates does take significant time after its publication, unlike other articles.

I like the playtests, don't get me wrong, but I'd rather see a smaller portion of the content devoted to it. If it makes me a terrible person, so be it

Playtests
Druid
Invoker
Mercykillers
AV2

Features
Agents of Tiamat
Lords of Chaos: Mual-tar
Bestiary
Role vs Roll: Yuletide

Columns
RPGA Report
Living Forgotten Realms
Confessions
D&D Alumni

Editorials
Editorial
Ampersand

 

[Zsig]

The thing is, the book (PHB II) will come out in march, and it'll probably go to print sooner than that (say, mid february, I honestly have no idea).

We can't really playtest something if it's not going to be changed between now and the time they publish the book.

The barbarian and the bard already got some love, there's still 6 classes to go. Now Druid, Invoker, and Mercykiller (whatever that means).

We're missing another 3 (or 4 if Avenger =/= Mercykiller), though, they might as well not give us the other ones until the book arrives.


But in order for them to tell us what are the changes they're doing to the class based on the feedback from us, they (and us) need the time to do so.

That being said now, do you really think there's going to be any more of those articles? I'd say either they'll throw up all the last 3 ones for january, or possible a single one, or most likely none. So I take it much like some sort of a christmas present.

Although I do agree that it could get a bit overwhelming 3 new classes to playtest.

 

[doctorhook]

The thing is, the book (PHB II) will come out in march, and it'll probably go to print sooner than that (say, mid february, I honestly have no idea).

We can't really playtest something if it's not going to be changed between now and the time they publish the book.

The barbarian and the bard already got some love, there's still 6 classes to go. Now Druid, Invoker, and Mercykiller (whatever that means).

We're missing another 3 (or 4 if Avenger =/= Mercykiller), though, they might as well not give us the other ones until the book arrives.


But in order for them to tell us what are the changes they're doing to the class based on the feedback from us, they (and us) need the time to do so.

That being said now, do you really think there's going to be any more of those articles? I'd say either they'll throw up all the last 3 ones for january, or possible a single one, or most likely none. So I take it much like some sort of a christmas present.

Although I do agree that it could get a bit overwhelming 3 new classes to playtest.

Consider the playtesting at this point to be a beta test; these PH2 mechanics are primarily completed now, and the purpose of the playtest is to put these new mechanics through their paces, to see if there's any major breaking points which have been missed. That said, I don't expect to see public playtest material for every new mechanic; there's plenty of additional playtesting going on behind the scenes, so to speak.

FWIW, we know that at least one of December's playtests will be for a book not being released in September: AV2, and there's plenty of good reason to think that the Mercykiller playtest might not be for PH2, either. I think you're right that we're probably seeing the last of PH2 playtests, at this point, but it looks like we're being moved straight on ahead to future material!

 

[Zsig]

For some reason I think that Magic Items, Monsters, Traps and maybe even Races are way easier to playtest and fix than a whole Class. And that happens because you can basicly test them isolated from all the rest, you actually don't even need to play test them, just allow some of the min-max optimizer players do the math and think the unthinkable to see where the mechanic ticks and where it breaks combined with Magic Item X or Power Y from some class, or ... I think you got the idea.

Classes on the other hand, are a bit trickier as it might not play the same way it looks like, not to mention the possibilities are much bigger, there are way too many ways to screw a class mechanic-wise.

So yeah, I guess we'll keep seeing lots more of those AV2 previews/playtests or whatever they want to call them. But I wouldn't hope to see another class playtest up until june or somewhere around then.


Worth mentioning though that they told us already that one of the "playtests" is going to look just like the bard's, which means, only a few levels, thus more like a preview than an actual playtest article. Or maybe the ones they listed so far are the actual playtest while there are even more we don't know? (The bard article came in the Ampersand).

Anyways, enough speculation, december (and of course march) apparently won't come soon enough.