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How to take over a Marilith with a cantrip (not really...) - Our playtest report!
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6066397" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p><u>PLAYTESTING COMMENTS</u></p><p></p><p>Overall, I can say that the system definitely allowed me to run the game with the style I had in mind. There was nothing I had left out from character creation or combat rules, that later I felt I should have not.</p><p></p><p><strong>Fighter:</strong> This was the PC that worked better. In fact, it had no problem at all. The player used almost everything on the character sheet except the Ride skill (obviously) and Knight's Station (nobody used their Background's Trait, but this was totally expected).</p><p></p><p><strong>Rogue:</strong> <em>Sneak Attack</em> came up only a couple of times, because while the players were very good before and after combat, during combat they usually played very straightforward (in fact, they did almost nothing else than just attack or cast a spell), so they weren't usually looking for ways to get advantage except when ambushing. Anyway, SA felt just like a minor bonus overall, nothing memorable.</p><p><em>Quick Reflexes</em> felt a nice feature when used for initiative, but also rendered the Rogue totally immune to surprise! It was quite obvious that when surprised, the Rogue would always choose not to skip the surprise round rather than having an init bonus on the second round.</p><p>We screwed up <em>Skill Mastery</em> big time... for a while we rolled the d20 twice instead of the d4, no wonder the Rogue was very happy about it. After we found our mistake, our Rogue was very disappointed. I am probably also affected by this course of event because right now I think the current <em>Skill Mastery</em> sucks to the point of being better left off.</p><p></p><p><strong>Wizard:</strong> Generally speaking, cantrips took over spells. Keep in mind that the characters did not have a long rest during the adventure, but anyway the Wizard only cast ONE 1st level spell (in fact, I never knew which other spell she had prepared...), and otherwise did everything only with Cantrips. If you remember, I allowed her to know all cantrips, but truth is that most of the time she used the combat ones (Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp...) or the illusions to deal with most situations. Maybe the combat cantrips are still a little bit too good.</p><p><em>Detect Magic</em> was the only 1st level spell she used. We thought that 1 minute duration was too short because she expected to use this while advancing in the dungeon. I wonder if this spell could work better if allowed as a Ritual.</p><p><em>Minor Illusion</em> was her favourite spell, and used it both as ghost sound and as silent image. We had a couple situations that the rules didn't make clear: once she wanted to create the image of a lit torch, which I said was beyond the spell capabilities, but in fact the rules don't explicitly say so; another time, she wanted to move the image beyond corners, and I had to let her do so because I couldn't find line-of-sight restrictions in both the spell description and the general rules for magic.</p><p>She also made very good use of <em>Knowledge</em> skills to get various clues. I ruled that she could use Arcana to identify magic items (she could have cast Identify as ritual or Read Magic, but I didn't want to suggest them) with only a chance of success. We also agreed that "Dungeoneering" is a silly-sounding name, "Knowledge Underground" sounded a bit better.</p><p></p><p><em>Other problems</em>: one problem we found with the <em>short-rest healing rules</em> was that the players tend <em>not</em> to use it when they have only 1-2 hp of damage, because they don't want to "waste" their HD which usually heals more than that, but they all complained that their PCs would have definitely wanted to heal those injuries. </p><p>Maybe a hit-point pool of healing would have worked better than the HD mechanic.</p><p></p><p><em>Surprise</em> seemed a bit too good to get, because it's a full round worth of actions. When the PC got it, the monsters couldn't sometimes even act before being all killed.</p><p></p><p><em>Damage</em> was indeed generally quite high compared to hit points. I think only the combat against the aranea lasted into the third round... (but I have to say that here we made another mistake... in the first day we played that criticals gave also spells an additional dice of damage!).</p><p></p><p><em>Saving throws:</em> some confusion from the wording of ST being loosely described as "reactions" which is a technical word. It would be important to clarify this, because if they are technically reactions, you can only do one ST per round, and I don't think this is really the case!</p><p></p><p>I was worried about the lack of penalties for <em>ranged attacks in melee</em> and <em>casting in melee</em> but they didn't come up because the Rogue could do better damage with the rapier than the shortbow, and the Wizard just preferred spells that worked from range.</p><p></p><p>(continues tomorrow with comments on monsters)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6066397, member: 1465"] [U]PLAYTESTING COMMENTS[/U] Overall, I can say that the system definitely allowed me to run the game with the style I had in mind. There was nothing I had left out from character creation or combat rules, that later I felt I should have not. [B]Fighter:[/B] This was the PC that worked better. In fact, it had no problem at all. The player used almost everything on the character sheet except the Ride skill (obviously) and Knight's Station (nobody used their Background's Trait, but this was totally expected). [B]Rogue:[/B] [I]Sneak Attack[/I] came up only a couple of times, because while the players were very good before and after combat, during combat they usually played very straightforward (in fact, they did almost nothing else than just attack or cast a spell), so they weren't usually looking for ways to get advantage except when ambushing. Anyway, SA felt just like a minor bonus overall, nothing memorable. [I]Quick Reflexes[/I] felt a nice feature when used for initiative, but also rendered the Rogue totally immune to surprise! It was quite obvious that when surprised, the Rogue would always choose not to skip the surprise round rather than having an init bonus on the second round. We screwed up [I]Skill Mastery[/I] big time... for a while we rolled the d20 twice instead of the d4, no wonder the Rogue was very happy about it. After we found our mistake, our Rogue was very disappointed. I am probably also affected by this course of event because right now I think the current [I]Skill Mastery[/I] sucks to the point of being better left off. [B]Wizard:[/B] Generally speaking, cantrips took over spells. Keep in mind that the characters did not have a long rest during the adventure, but anyway the Wizard only cast ONE 1st level spell (in fact, I never knew which other spell she had prepared...), and otherwise did everything only with Cantrips. If you remember, I allowed her to know all cantrips, but truth is that most of the time she used the combat ones (Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp...) or the illusions to deal with most situations. Maybe the combat cantrips are still a little bit too good. [I]Detect Magic[/I] was the only 1st level spell she used. We thought that 1 minute duration was too short because she expected to use this while advancing in the dungeon. I wonder if this spell could work better if allowed as a Ritual. [I]Minor Illusion[/I] was her favourite spell, and used it both as ghost sound and as silent image. We had a couple situations that the rules didn't make clear: once she wanted to create the image of a lit torch, which I said was beyond the spell capabilities, but in fact the rules don't explicitly say so; another time, she wanted to move the image beyond corners, and I had to let her do so because I couldn't find line-of-sight restrictions in both the spell description and the general rules for magic. She also made very good use of [I]Knowledge[/I] skills to get various clues. I ruled that she could use Arcana to identify magic items (she could have cast Identify as ritual or Read Magic, but I didn't want to suggest them) with only a chance of success. We also agreed that "Dungeoneering" is a silly-sounding name, "Knowledge Underground" sounded a bit better. [I]Other problems[/I]: one problem we found with the [I]short-rest healing rules[/I] was that the players tend [I]not[/I] to use it when they have only 1-2 hp of damage, because they don't want to "waste" their HD which usually heals more than that, but they all complained that their PCs would have definitely wanted to heal those injuries. Maybe a hit-point pool of healing would have worked better than the HD mechanic. [I]Surprise[/I] seemed a bit too good to get, because it's a full round worth of actions. When the PC got it, the monsters couldn't sometimes even act before being all killed. [I]Damage[/I] was indeed generally quite high compared to hit points. I think only the combat against the aranea lasted into the third round... (but I have to say that here we made another mistake... in the first day we played that criticals gave also spells an additional dice of damage!). [I]Saving throws:[/I] some confusion from the wording of ST being loosely described as "reactions" which is a technical word. It would be important to clarify this, because if they are technically reactions, you can only do one ST per round, and I don't think this is really the case! I was worried about the lack of penalties for [I]ranged attacks in melee[/I] and [I]casting in melee[/I] but they didn't come up because the Rogue could do better damage with the rapier than the shortbow, and the Wizard just preferred spells that worked from range. (continues tomorrow with comments on monsters) [/QUOTE]
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