Greg Bilsland: Prophecy of the Priestess Part IV

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Greg Bilsland has put Prophecy of the Priestess Part IV up on his Gleemax blog. It's rather large, so I won't copy it here unless someone asks.

One interesting tidbit:

The encounters still leave something to be desired, for although many of the classes are starting to feel like they’re supposed to—Michele confided that the paladin is beginning to feel like a paladin—the combat aspects are still unbalanced in some respects. One example was an instance when the rat creature was forced to either attack Wilbur or take an opportunity attack from him, or else to attack Valinae and suffer a –5 to attack. While these kind of synergizing abilities are fun, in fact, they’re part of what makes DnD what it is, they nonetheless require balance. I assuaged this problem with a table rule that Peter suggested until the ability is actually fixed.

Wilbur is a fighter, Valinae a paladin. At a guess they are using the fighter's attack of opportunity power mentioned in the last podcast and the paladin's divine challenge ability that was revealed recently. Though I think that would make it "attack Valenae or suffer a -5 to attack."

 

[Aloïsius]

Another thing : one of the PC fall in the sewage after rolling a critical failure.

So, fumbles are back in the rules, at least for skills. I'm not sure I like this : they removed them in 3e, saying they were not fun...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another thing : one of the PC fall in the sewage after rolling a critical failure.

So, fumbles are back in the rules, at least for skills. I'm not sure I like this : they removed them in 3e, saying they were not fun...

I've not looked at the blog yet, but this has been the case throughout 3e - fail a climb check by 5 or more and you fall. Fail a balance check by 5 or more and you fall (etc)

 

[TerraDave]

Right. I don't think its a fumble, just a failed skill. What is interesting is that Wilbur the fighter was able to reduce the impact of the fall.

There are unamed skill uses through out, there is also note of two charecters using knowledge like skills together, so aid another or some other cooperative mechanic might be in play.

There was also a fight against rat swarms, so we have swarms.

One thing I thought was interesting is the dwarf rogue "slipping in" and "severing" a skelletons spine. Another hint that rogues will be able to sneak attack undead.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Do these players ever think for themselves? Somebody told us to escape through the crypt. OH GOD UNDEAD ARE EATING US. Hey, guys, you think maybe the NPCs might be out to get you? Maybe you shouldn't believe the next 'helpful guy' that comes along. Really, though, these guys are playing it like a video game. They just wander blindly from one plot point to the next.

Somebody give me a playtest where the PCs make the GM improvise, please?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm torn about the last three paragraphs of the blog. I'm glad to hear that the classes are feeling like they should, but I am concerned that, according to the first line, this game was played on October 23. It just seems to me that more of these things should be pretty well set by now.

OTOH, if they are still shifting things this much, that means the outside playtests will have a chance to affect the rules more than some of us thought when we heard the PHB draft had been handed off a few weeks back.

I've said it before and I will say it again here, I would love to see the overall project plan for the development and launch. Are they where they thought they would be seven months before release?

 

[Cadfan]

Random thoughts-

The rogue checks for traps at the door. That's my least favorite aspect of D&D, I think. Fortunately, I can delete that issue from my own campaigns with ease. As I do now, I can just tell the characters that traps will NOT be found at random, they will only exist in places where contextual clues tell you there is a trap, if they are found at all.

I like that they've gone with a sort of sideways reasoning in convincing monsters to attack defenders. Inflicting penalties on a monster attacking a character other than a defender when a defender is available is one elegant way to do it, and its logical as well- the orc can't hit the wizard with his axe because every time he takes his attention off of the fighter to try, the fighter stabs him. Nice. However, I can certainly see this causing balance problems when multiple defenders gang up on one enemy. Suppose fighters have an ability that lets them take an attack of opportunity when an enemy they threaten attacks someone other than them. Now, surround one enemy with 5 fighters, all of whom have this ability. No matter who the enemy attacks, it suffers 4 attacks of opportunity. Some of this is a good thing, but in bulk it can get out of hand. I don't see an obvious solution for this, but I also don't know the specific abilities available or how they interact.

 

[Beckett]

Sweet Jesus. Do these players ever think for themselves? Somebody told us to escape through the crypt. OH GOD UNDEAD ARE EATING US. Hey, guys, you think maybe the NPCs might be out to get you? Maybe you shouldn't believe the next 'helpful guy' that comes along. Really, though, these guys are playing it like a video game. They just wander blindly from one plot point to the next.

Somebody give me a playtest where the PCs make the GM improvise, please?

I would think in a playtest it's better to follow the DM's script, even if it is a bit railroady. After all, it's a little hard to test how the game works if the DM is running off the cuff.

 

[Doug McCrae]

However, I can certainly see this causing balance problems when multiple defenders gang up on one enemy. Suppose fighters have an ability that lets them take an attack of opportunity when an enemy they threaten attacks someone other than them. Now, surround one enemy with 5 fighters, all of whom have this ability. No matter who the enemy attacks, it suffers 4 attacks of opportunity. Some of this is a good thing, but in bulk it can get out of hand. I don't see an obvious solution for this, but I also don't know the specific abilities available or how they interact.

I don't see anything wrong with that. A party of five fighters should absolutely own in combat, given that that's all fighters can do.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Somebody give me a playtest where the PCs make the GM improvise, please?

In my experience, players follow the plot about 90-95% of the time. For example in my current campaign I've only completely improvised one adventure in twenty sessions. The rest of the time it's - NPC will give you money if you do X. What do you do? Players: We do X.

After all the players know the DM has done more work on the prepared adventure so its set pieces, encounters, NPCs and so forth are likely to be more interesting and just plain better than if the DM is extemporising.

So if an NPC is telling me to go down a crypt I'm guessing the DM has prepared some cool stuff down there. Whether it's all a trap or whatever doesn't really matter.