KOTS, Lay hands, other and play.

[PeelSeel2]

Last night we played KOTS. For myself and 1 other player, we had tried it once before with the lite rules and a made up scenario. For the rest (4 players), it was their first experience.

They all liked it. The out of combat stuff played like we play any edition of D&D. It was fun, and due to one characters suspicions, role playing, and good insight roll, he was able to discern Ninarian as a 'person of interest'. I think he would have waited in his room and tried taking him out if the rest of the party had not dissuaded him. All he had was mild circumstantial suspicions; not enough to slay the elf in everyones opinion. The elf soon left town to go hunting....

All players liked combat, especially the designation of actions and the powers. Book keeping was a little odd, and rolling so many to hits for area effects was cumbersome. These are issues that will be no big issue. Get more dice!! Improve my bookkeeping space as DM. Over all, everyone felt it flowed a lot better than 3.5x, and had more of a sense of lethality to it. Minions are annoying, effective, and to be reckoned with. Elites are Bad-A$$ when combined with other fodder.

House rules that evolved during lay:
I played where minions rolled damaged.
Paladins Lay on hands was 'at-will', not 'at-will once per day' that just did not make sense to make it a daily power. Plus they did not have a cleric and their would have been two TPK's that night if the paladin 'lay on hands' was a daily power.
As many fate points as you have can be expended in an encounter, one per round.

Quote of the night:
Paladin to Thief, "Thief!!! That IS NOT my bag of Money!!"

 

[Colmarr]

Paladins Lay on hands was 'at-will', not 'at-will once per day' that just did not make sense to make it a daily power. Plus they did not have a cleric and their would have been two TPK's that night if the paladin 'lay on hands' was a daily power.

Lay On Hands is an at-will power that can be used a number of times per day based on an ability score (IIRC it's Wisdom). Unfortunately, the pre-gen paladin in KotS only has enough of that ability score to allow him to do it once per day.

 

[PeelSeel2]

Lay On Hands is an at-will power that can be used a number of times per day based on an ability score (IIRC it's Wisdom). Unfortunately, the pre-gen paladin in KotS only has enough of that ability score to allow him to do it once per day.

Ahhhhh! Ok. Well, it worked out for them last night . I think next session we will play it normal on that one. They can use the heal skill more.

 

[rhm001]

Lay On Hands is an at-will power that can be used a number of times per day based on an ability score (IIRC it's Wisdom). Unfortunately, the pre-gen paladin in KotS only has enough of that ability score to allow him to do it once per day.

Yeah, it really makes a Paladin dependent on 3 abilities, while most other characters use 1 or 2. Hopefully there will be a feat that adds to the number of LoH's a paladin has available; useful to every paladin, but more useful for one with a lower Wis bonus.

 

[Jhaelen]

Yeah, it really makes a Paladin dependent on 3 abilities, while most other characters use 1 or 2.

Really? My impression so far was that all character classes have three important abilities.

 

[Flazzy]

The paladin is a defender, not a leader. You could still play his role perfectly with no wis bonus at all.

 

[Dragonblade]

Lay On Hands is an at-will power that can be used a number of times per day based on an ability score (IIRC it's Wisdom). Unfortunately, the pre-gen paladin in KotS only has enough of that ability score to allow him to do it once per day.

Yes. Additionally, the reason its considered "at-will" is because if the paladin has multiple uses of it, he can use lay on hands multiple times in the same encounter if he so chooses.

 

[MindWanderer]

Yeah, it really makes a Paladin dependent on 3 abilities, while most other characters use 1 or 2. Hopefully there will be a feat that adds to the number of LoH's a paladin has available; useful to every paladin, but more useful for one with a lower Wis bonus.

And the Dragonborn Paladin is even worse, depending on Con heavily as well (for two racial abilities, as well as enough Healing Surges to blow on Lay on Hands). You pretty much have to choose one "critical" ability to skimp on.

What I don't get is why Lay on Hands, which you can use Wis/day, is At-Will (special), while Healing Word, which you can use 2/encounter, is Encounter (special). They should both be At-Will (special) or Daily/Encounter (special).

 

[rhm001]

Really? My impression so far was that all character classes have three important abilities.

Well, I would respectfully submit that "important" is a subjective term. Based on what we've seen so far (admittedly, not everything) every class has one or two abilities that powers are based on. The fighter, warlord and paladin abilities we've seen so far mostly attack based on strength, the cleric's powers use primarily wisdom, ranger and rogue attacks use dexterity, warlocks use charisma, and wizards use intelligence. For some classes, like the paladin and the warlord, the abilities that the attacks are based on and the abilities that govern the damage or side effects are not the same: strength vs. charisma or intelligence. There are also class features; some of the classes, such as the rogue and the warlord, have options for basing those abilities on different scores, while others, like the fighter's, do not use an ability score.

There may be multiple relevant abilities, but not all of those abilities are created equal. For example, as of right now, the suggested cleric abilities are wisdom and charisma. Wisdom is certainly useful, but so far, the only cleric power we've seen that gains from charisma is the priest's shield. All of the cleric's class features we've seen so far are based on wisdom. Clerics will also enjoy a benefit from strength if they focus on melee attacks. That's three abilities, but you can easily build a functional cleric without charisma (since, even with no bonus, the priest's shield attack grants a +1 to armor) or strength.

For others, like the paladin, multiple abilities are more of a concern. Whereas the cleric uses wisdom for all of their class abilities and a majority of their attacks and damage, the paladin uses strength to attack and charisma to damage, as well as charisma to govern applying their marks. Which is fine, that's two abilities, and they're defenders, so they should probably have a decent strength anyway... But wait! In addition to charisma, one of the paladin's class features also requires a wisdom bonus. Not a wisdom attack, a wisdom class feature. While a low strength or charisma makes some attacks harder as a cleric, a lack of a wisdom bonus means the paladin loses a CLASS FEATURE.

Of course, as a defender (and as a class with a feature that gives your healing surges to someone else), you want a decent constitution score as well. Assuming that the constitution bonus is more akin to the cleric's strength and charisma bonuses---useful but not essential---and EVEN assuming, for the sake of argument, that you could live without either the wisdom bonus or without a strength bonus (take your pick, though I'll also note that strength is certainly more important than for the cleric, since you don't have wisdom or charisma attacks to switch to), the numbers are still cleric: 1 major, 2 minor, vs. paladin: 2 major and 2 minor.

The fighter's, ranger's, rogue's, warlock's and wizard's abilities appear to be closer to the cleric's, primarily benefiting from one ability for both attack and damage, with additional benefits from others. As of right now, it's not totally clear whether the warlord will require both intelligence and charisma for class features in addition to strength and one or the other for attacks.

 

[Valerion Steele]

i think str isn´t needed , ´cause the "new" pally is a classic tank...
he need not do lots of damage but just bind the enemy... with enough teamplay with rogues and such his damage source will be the radiant damage from his marking ability...
the ddxp pregen halfling pally doesn´t do much damage but is a pain in the a.. if some target presents itself to the marked opponent for oas...
example: pally marks the enemy , ranger shoots his bow adjacent to marked foe , foe wants to take his oa , slam... radiant damage... if he doesn´t use his oa the ranger gets away with shooting him right in the face...