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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gargoyle" data-source="post: 6344735" data-attributes="member: 529">Ran a short session this morning for a couple of players using the Starter set, so I guess my vote should change from Playtest to Played.  My wife rolled a wood elf fighter (soldier) and my friend rolled a lightfoot halfling wizard (river merchant).  The river merchant backgroud we made up on during character creation.  Character creation was already done for my wife, but my friend decided to create his halfling wizard this morning, and he enjoyed the background process.  He's the type of guy that will go to restaurant and ALWAYS request some sort of menu change, so when I mentioned he could modify the backgrounds I knew he'd go for that, but he took it a step further and created a new one with the Persuasion skill and Water Vehicles tool proficiencies, and the feature of Practiced Sailor, which basically gives him advantage on doing any sort of sailing tasks like navigation etc.  The idea of the background is that he had spent his life on the water traveling the rivers selling goods and developed a great familiarity with the inland waterways.He rolled and got decent scores, but nothing over a 14, ending up with a 16 Dex and 14 Intelligence.  Not ideal for a wizard but interesting which was fine with him.Spoilers below for the starter set, but just the first part as we only had a couple of hours to play.[spoiler]They took the ox wagon down the rutted trail and two goblins managed to get surprise on them and fired arrows at their only target, the halfling wizard driving the cart.  The elf fighter was walking behind the wagon, reasoning that she was faster than the oxen and didn't want to get too far ahead of it. The halfling took both arrows and immediately dropped to zero hit points.  The goblins disappeared again so they couldn't be targeted.  The player laughed, thinking he was dead, but I pointed out that he just needed to start making death saving throws and explained it to him.  He failed the first one.  The fighter climbed up into the wagon and rolled a 20 on animal handling to get the oxen turned around swiftly and moving the other way.  She benefitted from cover from the wagon on the next round, but still got nicked by one arrow before escaping back up the trail.  She then made a Wisdom check to stabilize him.With only two player characters, I knew it was going to be dangerous, so I was interested in what they would do if the goblins did well right away, and they made good choices.  They camped and healed.  At dawn they decided to go up the ridge. The wizard convinced the fighter to doff her armor for a while so they could get the drop on the goblins.  The plan worked.  They managed to spot the hidden goblins without being spotted themselves and obtained surprise. The fighter drew her scimitars and dashed toward them, while the wizard rained hell with flame bolts.  On the second round he finished off a goblin, and the other one ran up the trail and hid, managing to completely avoid the fighter's attacks due to the distance between them.  Afterward they pressed on to the town, delivered the goods and talked to the locals, learning of the Redbrands and realizing that their patron had probably been taken by the goblins and is up the trail.Pretty dangerous ambush for first level characters, as many have pointed out, but we all enjoyed it though.[/spoiler]My takeaways:  - We missed the charge action, but I'll reserve judgment until the PHB comes out.  - Character creation is quick enough, but only because I had made a couple before and was able to guide them.  It would have taken the entire session if I didn't.  Backgrounds seem to be consistently taking the longest part of character creation; I rather like that.- Despite only having 2.5 hours to play, we got through character creation and three encounters; with two players and at 1st level, things go fast, but still, that was nice and quick, considering I was looking some things up since we want to learn the system.- 1st level is dangerous but I didn't feel it was unfairly so.- Healing rules are unrealistic but when you don't have a cleric they are practical for getting back on your feet quickly; I like it better than the CLW of 3rd edition or needing to have a cleric in earlier editions.  I like the hit dice mechanic better than healing surges, but hp being healed up to full on a long rest may be a bit much for my tastes.  There will probably be options in the DMG I guess.- I sort of am in love with the Death and Dying rules.  - Players loved the proficiency rules, they felt like it was the first edition that made sense to them for figuring out what their characters were good at.- Starter set adventure is not bad, just not sure it's great for new players and DM's.  First fight can be deadly though, and I'm not sure how a new DM would handle fewer than four player characters, and I thought the town section / NPC's could use better organization.  I have other quibbles, but that's just the parts I've run.- Obviously didn't play enough yet to really form an opinion about anything, except one thing everyone said at one time or another: it's good to be playing D&D again.</blockquote>

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