Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
Just some quick notes from our 3-hour playtest session over the weekend....
We played, as you might guess, Caves of Chaos with the pregens. No need to explain a lot there.
The PCs were a little slow to learn the advantage of actually using your scout as ... you know, a scout ... after having to feel from two different caves (kobolds and orcs). After the second foray, we advanced to 2nd level (to try playing a little higher) and managed a bit more success.
Random Thoughts, Notes, Etc.
- Using your action anytime during your movement turned out to be something I used on the players more than the players used on me. It was used, for example, by a large room full of kobolds to step into a space where they could see the Pcs in a hall, shoot a sling bullet, and duck back out of site.
- The rogue struggled a little. We were using a map, so basically playing on a grid without the full grid rules. Without flanking rules, it's hard for the rogue to get Advantage every round. The best she could do was hide one round and attack the next -- which made a lot more sense to do once she hit second level (and got a second die of sneak attack damage).
- The rogue did get a chance to shine when she snuck into a roomful of 6 sleeping orcs. She moved from one to the next, delivering a coup de grace while they slept. I decided that she could make a stealth check to try to keep the action quiet and avoid waking up the other orcs -- and the orcs, because they were asleep, had disadvantage on their checks to hear her and wake up. So, each round she would deliver a killing blow to a sleeping orc, make a stealth check, and I'd roll two dice for the surviving orcs to see if any woke up.
Her rogue skill benefit (any roll under 10 is a 10) saved her life -- I don't think she rolled over 10 on her stealth checks more than once in the whole encounter. So the Orcs usually were trying to get a 16 or better on both of two d20. When she was about to attack the second to last orc, dripping with the blood of four others, one of the orcs finally woke up, and things got a little exciting, but for a while there she was on a roll.
- The mystic cleric was frustrated to be back in the roll of heal-bot. After years of 4e, it's hard to go back to a style of game where it's hard to spend cleric spell slots on anything other than healing.
In the final fight with the Orcs, the mystic cast shield of faith on both dwarves, who held the hallway and fought a huge roomful of Orcs -- I think there were nearly 20 of them -- and did so taking very little damage (the spell grants attackers disadvantage). They were practically impervious, and the spells probably prevented far more damage than those slots could have healed -- which might mean that the feeling that the clerics spell slots must be saved for healing is a relic of our hold 3e habits and doesn't really reflect the new game.....
- Many of the players wished they had more options in combat. We've all been playing 4e since the 4 playtests, so we're very much used to having options. Combat in this version gets swinging very quickly.
- We missed some basic combat options: I mentioned flanking, but we also missed having charge as an option.
- I really, really like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. The one possible problem in play was that, from time to time, it required a whole lot of rolling dice. Like when the rogue was killing the sleeping orcs -- I was just rolling like mad. When the two dwarves with shield of faith faced a roomful of orcs, and the orcs were darting in to attack, I almost sprained my wrist I was rolling so much.
- The caves of chaos stat blocks for monsters do NOT match what's in the bestiary. I went back and forth between the two, in some cases blending what was in both. I especially felt like the DDN Orcs were weenies. I really wanted them to be a lot tougher.
And.... there were dick jokes, so it felt like D&D.
-rg
We played, as you might guess, Caves of Chaos with the pregens. No need to explain a lot there.
The PCs were a little slow to learn the advantage of actually using your scout as ... you know, a scout ... after having to feel from two different caves (kobolds and orcs). After the second foray, we advanced to 2nd level (to try playing a little higher) and managed a bit more success.
Random Thoughts, Notes, Etc.
- Using your action anytime during your movement turned out to be something I used on the players more than the players used on me. It was used, for example, by a large room full of kobolds to step into a space where they could see the Pcs in a hall, shoot a sling bullet, and duck back out of site.
- The rogue struggled a little. We were using a map, so basically playing on a grid without the full grid rules. Without flanking rules, it's hard for the rogue to get Advantage every round. The best she could do was hide one round and attack the next -- which made a lot more sense to do once she hit second level (and got a second die of sneak attack damage).
- The rogue did get a chance to shine when she snuck into a roomful of 6 sleeping orcs. She moved from one to the next, delivering a coup de grace while they slept. I decided that she could make a stealth check to try to keep the action quiet and avoid waking up the other orcs -- and the orcs, because they were asleep, had disadvantage on their checks to hear her and wake up. So, each round she would deliver a killing blow to a sleeping orc, make a stealth check, and I'd roll two dice for the surviving orcs to see if any woke up.
Her rogue skill benefit (any roll under 10 is a 10) saved her life -- I don't think she rolled over 10 on her stealth checks more than once in the whole encounter. So the Orcs usually were trying to get a 16 or better on both of two d20. When she was about to attack the second to last orc, dripping with the blood of four others, one of the orcs finally woke up, and things got a little exciting, but for a while there she was on a roll.
- The mystic cleric was frustrated to be back in the roll of heal-bot. After years of 4e, it's hard to go back to a style of game where it's hard to spend cleric spell slots on anything other than healing.
In the final fight with the Orcs, the mystic cast shield of faith on both dwarves, who held the hallway and fought a huge roomful of Orcs -- I think there were nearly 20 of them -- and did so taking very little damage (the spell grants attackers disadvantage). They were practically impervious, and the spells probably prevented far more damage than those slots could have healed -- which might mean that the feeling that the clerics spell slots must be saved for healing is a relic of our hold 3e habits and doesn't really reflect the new game.....
- Many of the players wished they had more options in combat. We've all been playing 4e since the 4 playtests, so we're very much used to having options. Combat in this version gets swinging very quickly.
- We missed some basic combat options: I mentioned flanking, but we also missed having charge as an option.
- I really, really like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. The one possible problem in play was that, from time to time, it required a whole lot of rolling dice. Like when the rogue was killing the sleeping orcs -- I was just rolling like mad. When the two dwarves with shield of faith faced a roomful of orcs, and the orcs were darting in to attack, I almost sprained my wrist I was rolling so much.
- The caves of chaos stat blocks for monsters do NOT match what's in the bestiary. I went back and forth between the two, in some cases blending what was in both. I especially felt like the DDN Orcs were weenies. I really wanted them to be a lot tougher.
And.... there were dick jokes, so it felt like D&D.
-rg
