Rodney Thompson's Playtest Report on Gleemax

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Rodney Thompson has a playtest report from his experience in Chris Perkins campaign. A part:

Yesterday before the game I grabbed the latest 4th Edition documents off our shared server and updated my eladrin wizard (Vargas) to the newest rules. Took about 5 minutes (one of my feats had been renamed, and another feat that had higher prereqs before but got lowered replaced one of the feats I didn't really want). The new revision of the wizard gave me an additional power (I picked ray of frost so I could slow enemies down), and several of my spells got tweaked a bit (like magic missile). Not much else changed for my character, though, except a few things like ranges on spells or the frequency with which I could use my wand power. So Vargas remains much the same, but with a new trick up his sleeve.

Perhaps Golden Wyvern Adept is now Shaping Adept?

 

[MerricB]

Rodney Thompson has a playtest report from his experience in Chris Perkins campaign.

You can also find it on his Livejournal

Cheers!

 

[mach1.9pants]

hope so

 

[Xethreau]

"Spell Shaping Adept" I think would be a good/likely alternative, if that is the feat that changed names.

Wow, that sounds like it was a really fun session! He also makes it sound like "Rituals" are obtainable in ways other than leveling up. It would be interesting to see how much rituals and storing them are like wizard's old spellbooks. If they are similar, I think I like that a lot!

 

[Cadfan]

Perhaps Golden Wyvern Adept is now Shaping Adept?

Perhaps, but I'm betting that unlike at this forum, the name "Golden Wyvern Adept" does not monopolize the entirety of the workday.

 

[TwinBahamut]

So a 20+ round battle involving 5 (or 6?) PCs, 15 goblins (including spellcasters), a ship exploding, attempts at diplomacy, and a copper dragon took only two hours, even though they just went through a rule adjustment. Considering that it takes D&D groups I have played with about four hours to do a third of that, it sounds rather impressive to me.

Since this pretty much confirms that chromatic/metallic dragons are going to remain the same in 4E, I am actually rather disappointed. I was hoping that particular sacred cow would die, myself. It is unnecessary and is painfully limiting for new dragon concepts (the horrid "ferrous" dragons are proof enough of how it can easily lead to awkward dragon concepts and names). I would much rather just have fire dragons, ice dragons, earth dragons, sky dragons, etc, any of which can have a variety of appearances and colorations.

Also, can we please keep some of the "Golden Wyvern" naming debates out of this thread, considering it is little more than wild speculation? There are already plenty of threads for that particular debate.

 

[WhatGravitas]

So a 20+ round battle involving 5 (or 6?) PCs, 15 goblins (including spellcasters), a ship exploding, attempts at diplomacy, and a copper dragon took only two hours, even though they just went through a rule adjustment. Considering that it takes D&D groups I have played with about four hours to do a third of that, it sounds rather impressive to me.

Same here... impressive feat, doing that - seemingly, the people are getting used to the rules set and get the full advantage out of it. And seeing the "additional power" for the wizard, they seemingly up the total powers a wizard can have - I wonder if that's "only" done because he's too weak, or because they want to improve a wizard's "knows a lot"-feeling.

Also, can we please keep some of the naming debates out of this thread, considering it is little more than wild speculation? There are already plenty of threads for that particular debate.

Well, not going to say anything about the names... but the thread started that way, so it's probably not that unexpected to see that - though the playtest has a lot more interesting tidbits, so I agree with your suggestion.

Cheers, LT.

 

[MerricB]

Out of this report:

Wizard
- has magic missile
- has ray of frost (slows enemies down)
- has "fireblast" power
- the wand power has a frequency of use
- has "rituals"
- has areas of effect powers

Eladrin Wizard
- "Fey Step" power to teleport short distances (may be just Eladrin power, or connected to being a Wizard as well)

Copper Dragon
- deals acid damage (and has a continuing effect...)
- frightful presence paralyses foes
- gets a free breath attack when bloodied

Diplomacy
- negotiates in middle of combat

Warlord
- allowed the Wizard to cast an instanteous magic missile

 

[mach1.9pants]

Also, can we please keep some of the "Golden Wyvern" naming debates out of this thread, considering it is little more than wild speculation? There are already plenty of threads for that particular debate.

Mate, read the first post again- this thread has a question in the OP about the possibility that the GWA name is now defunct!
Edit: Sorry L.T already said it

 

[Sir Brennen]

Some things mentioned in the blog:

• Ray of Frost is wizard power, not spell (slows targets)
• Magic Missile is a spell, and is still undergoing tweaks
• Warlock mentioned causing ongoing fire effect
• Half-elf mentioned giving bonus to another PC's Diplomacy roll during combat
• Warlord gives ability for others to use abilities (wizard spells in this case) "at unexpected times"
• Dragon:

• causing ongoing acid damage every round
• still has frightful presence
• immediate breath weapon attack when reaching "bloodied"​

Edit: Doh! Scooped by Merric (though I think I got a couple things he missed)