Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Second session and a survey. Oh boy!

Submitted the answers to the D&D survey for the August packet this morning.

Odd timing given that our group has had exactly two play sessions with the rules. Are there groups out there that have played it more than three or four times? If so, how I envy them.

Anyways, I answered what I could and let them know what I thought of their Expertise dice instead of skills (I like it!) and their Paths/Circles (they suck!).

I wished that that I could have said more about my favorite classes; the mage, ranger, and rogue but I chose fighter so that's what I surveyed.

On the plus side, our Saturday night session was heavy on the combat. Got to try some intimidation and the advantage/disadvantage rules in action. Had a couple of close calls with the death rules but managed to keep a hit point or two in the pocket. We even had a critical hit.

All in all, I thought combat was very smooth and simple to follow. I even threw in a hinder attempt just to try it out and liked it; although our rogue polished the guy off before he was disadvantaged. There was one thing we weren't sure of and spent a few minutes searching the packet for, but otherwise once we got into the fighting, it was very streamlined. Of course, that might be a factor of us being just 1st level and not exactly brimming with combat options beyond swing sword or move then swing sword.

The one thing we noticed, and the item we had to look up, was the lack of the old safe 5' step. Personally, I liked that it was possible to provoke a reaction attack of opportunity if you moved only 5' but happened to leave an enemy's reach. It made it possible to get literally pinned down and forced you to consider where extra attackers might come from. Plus, there was still the option to use your action to disengage.

Crwth on the other hand, missed the free 5' step. He felt that it took away from the tactical side of combat. I can see that. I also have to concede that at one point, we had the last bandit literally pinned to the spot because he couldn't move even 5' without leaving someone's reach and provoking an attack. At that point, the fight turned into a simple exercise in die rolling. It didn't get dull because the bandit died right away, but if it had been some 200 HP beast, well...

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