NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Duckforceone" data-source="post: 4161749" data-attributes="member: 63823">So I ran my first playtest tonight. And I must admit I have been looking forward to this for some time.Downloaded the PHB lite, and the raiders of Oakhurst scenario. Got hold of the program “magic set editor” and started typing in all the characters powers, to make it a lot easier on the new players. They work great when printed out through the software, and put into card sleeves with a blank backside.This as my players stated, actually made it easier for them to figure out, than reading all the columns on the back of the character sheet.But first, let me introduce the cast.To my direct left, I had Skamos Redmoon, the tiefling wizard. An old hand at dnd and rpg’s in general, he read it all and understood right away all the skills at his disposal.After that, came his girlfriend, playing Tira Duskmeadow, the half-elf warlock. While having played rpg’s before, it was over 5 years since her last experience, making her quite rusty in picking up rules at the start.Further down the row, I had Kathra Ironforge, dwarven fighter. Also a dnd expert, and quite fast to pick up the rules without problems.At the end of the table, was our complimentary party member, not in person, but in spirit. This spot was tribute to Gary E Gygax, with a full set of dice laid out, a note sheet, and a pencil, and a complimentary cold soda.To my immediate right, was the party’s human cleric, Erias the sunlord. Again an old hand at dnd and rpg’s, he also quite quickly picked up the rules and started exploring them and finding lots of holes.Next to him, a total rpg virgin sat. Corrin Reedson, Halfling paladin. My first rules explanation, went right over his head, as I mostly went over what the rules meant instead of explaining how to do them. Though with the help of the cleric, he soon understood most of it, though still needed some guidance.With our party filled and ready, we started out with the first encounter. The fighter went in first. When he saw the Kobolds roasting the chickens over the fire, he stated, “They are all mine”, and blocked the entrance so the other characters could not go past him. This he shouted loud, so I ruled that Ichi-ichi heard him, and started sounding the alarm.One of the Kobold’s charged the fighter, while the others hung back and tried to hit with their spears. This all failed miseraly. Then ichi-ichi joined the fight and moved down towards the fighter.The fighter then charged the kobold minions around the fire, and started bashing them.The others started beating on ichi-ichi, while the wizard stole a roasted chicken from the fireplace with his magehand. This netted him a +1 on his next roll due to good fun.At round two, 4 more minions arrived, all of them charging the fighter, with ichi-ichi moving back and grouping up with all the minions. Most of the minions was quickly dispatched, as the wizard nuked them all with a burst attack, including hitting the fighter for 8 points of damge. This left a wounded ichi-ichi and 1 minion.Then round 3 arrived, and Pik and Otto-wombo arrived, staying by the stairs and using ranged attacks to pepper the warlock and fighter. The warlock was hit with a firepot, and started burning.The fighter and paladin charged the two, and left the rest of the party to mob up the leftovers.When varkaze arrived in round 4, he was immediately attacked by all the spell casters, while the two fighters wounded the two kobolds left. B y round 5, varkaze used his force pulse, and quickly fled back where he came from. And the two kobolds succumbed to their wounds. The party chose wisely not to follow.Then they became smart, so the wizard decided to scout on ahead. Rolling a 1 on his stealth check, he went towards King Meepo’s chamber.I had decided that since I forgot to send a warning to him, he was hiding under the blankets, and the spider was hidden in the ceiling.The wizard moves into the room, and spots the shivering blankets, and decides to look under them and find the king. Now the king only speaks draconic, and no player characters can speak that, so I missed out on some fun solution. Though pleading for his life in draconic, the mage decides to fire a magic missile at him. They roll for initiative, with the spider and meepo getting around 19 and 18, while the wizard rolled  an 8.The spider then drops behind the wizard, and proceeds to crit on it’s death from above attack. Then meepo lunges with his rapier crits, and the wizard goes to a merciful -6 hp (the crit alone would have taken him beyond -10 but I was nice).The party hears his death rattle, so they start running up. Meanwhile the spider hides again and meepo makes his escape through the secret door.The fighter charges in, seeing nothing, just stands in the middle of the room. The paladin arrives after him, spots the spider, which then proceeds to drop on the fighter. Quickly the rest of the party arrives and after a short battle, they kill the spider without problems.They get the wizard back on his feet, and proceeds back, not even thinking about how the kobold king escaped. They then enter the room, where the hobgoblins have already fortified themselves. Standing behind the large table they turned over, I ruled they had full cover, while shooting at the characters.The fighters in the party, then proceeded to flank the warcaster and warrior, while the casters in the party, flanked the archers forcing them to make melee attacks instead.It became a bit of a stalemate for some time, with not much damage being dished out, and the hobgoblin warrior failing to hit anything 5 turns in a row. Then the archers went down and the warcaster, leaving the warrior to get beaten up quite fast.The party rested for awhile, and learning from past mistakes, the warlock decided to scout ahead instead. Failing just as well with another 1 on stealth, she went near the cave opening, and quickly retreated seeing the empty cave.The party reformed and moved into the area. Seeing the ledge, they started moving up that, and when the last one had crossed the river, leaving the casters at the back, I charged up the dragon and meepo. Meepo attacked from the corner all the way up the top of the ledge, while the dragon jumped those at the back, at the bottom of the ledge. The dragon used it’s breath, then spent an action point to use it’s darkness. This really hindered the characters, as they had to blindly try and escape the area. I ruled that they had to roll a perception to see if they lost a sense of direction DC 15. If they did, they would go in a random direction.The dragon wounded the wizard,  and meepo started attacking the fighter from range. All the characters then moved outside the darkness, with all but the wizard charging towards poor meepo. The wizard circled around the other way, going behind the dragon and wanting to cast spells at meepo from across the room.The dragon left the darkness in place, as that is the way I read it, that it emanates from where it’s cast, and can be sustained there, as a darkness following the caster, would be a bit too much. This hindered the party for quite some time, while the dragon dove beneath the lake.A long fight with meepo ensued, with the fighter almost never hitting him due to bad rolls, and the others trying to get around the darkness. The cleric made it up near the fighter, and so did the warlock. Then the dragon jumped up from the water, and attacked them all from the side. Doing a wonderful recharge of the breath weapon, it fired it off again. Then the warlock moved, and it fired of it’s instant recharge breath, and downed the warlock. On it’s turn, it proceeded to down the paladin as well.This forced the cleric to heal the paladin with his last heal, who then had to lay on hands on the warlock.At this time, the warlock and wizard had to leave, so we decided to end it there. With a clear win for the dragon and meepo, though meepo was near death.The party was a bit bummed about meeting an unwinnable encounter, but they did state that had it been regular characters, they would have run after round two.This run through with rules explanation and starting up, took roughly 4-5 hours.After this I asked the players what they thought :Wizard : He loved the new system, quite a lot of tactics, and had a really fun time. And was definitely up for the next adventure when “keep on the shadowfell” comes out.Warlock : Liked it a lot, though due to a lot of bad dicerolls in the beginning, really warmed up to it in the end. Also a sure player at the next adventure time.Fighter : liked it quite good, but was a bit miffed at not having as many powers to choose from as the other players. Though after we explained that some of his passive skills such as marking and hitting people shifting, also was something, though I did not give him the possibility as I knew he could do this. So he warmed a bit more to it. He is also a sure in, on the next adventure, and likes that all has something to do.Cleric : While he found some problems with the rules, this is because of the lite rules system. He liked it a lot, and was really having fun. Also looking forward to the next adventure in this new system.Paladin : While he had some trouble in the start, and couldn’t so fast grasp all the tactical options, he had a lot of fun, and found it a pleasant way to spend an evening. Would also like to try it again.So overall, I must say it went great.We had some rules problems, as second wind doesn’t seem to state what kind of action it requires except a second wind action. But due to the fighters use of it as a minor action, we ruled it a standard action to use it. Though in hindsight, I guess it should probably have been a move action.Also, the paladin’s divine challenge. My god is it overpowerd in the state it’s in. I had read some about it, and modified it so that if the paladin moved away from the target, the spell would discontinue. This did not help much, because the players first thought up that they could just move the target away from the paladin, giving them free, no save damage against a real hard to hit enemy. After I ruled that out, they just moved the paladin close,  put the fighter out in front and the other characters, making a nice long path towards the paladin, where the marked creature would have to subject itself to 2-4 Opportunity attacks to reach the paladin.Free no save damage, with no to hit roll or anything, is way overpowered for first level.So from now on, the rule is the paladin may not move away or the spell ends, and also a save ends. Though this won’t help much as it’s a minor action and is just recast without trouble.At best I’d like it to be not close burst 5, but close only. And with the state that as soon as the paladin is not adjacent, the challenge ends.Personally, I love the new system, it was a breeze to gm, and really really fun having to think of good tactics. Cannot wait for the complete rules to come out, so we can see how the final product is.Well thanks for listening, input is welcome on my rulings.EDIT :also, i want to thank all you that already posted a recount of your adventures, they were a great inspiration for me to read.Oh and a note to other gm's. When you hand out the character sheet, keep a copy for yourself, so you don't have to ask for the character sheet, everytime you want to close read a rule.</blockquote>

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