Journey Playtests

This is where we're going to talk about playtests. Huzzah.

Playtest 1: March 23, 2008

Started with character creation. A defender, einhander, wizard, and crafter (?) were rolled.

Wizard was given spells from the 4e pregen wizard. No other class was given class features.

Starting cash is determined to be 50g for non-casters, 25g for casters. 50g seems to be a reasonable amount.

All characters were given "unlimited" money to purchase equipment, with the craft DCs being the limiting factor.

The characters then fought each other using d20 standard init and no facing. The defender won.

After, another character (priest) was generated. Priest was given a small selection of prayers from 4e pregen cleric.

Defender, priest, and wizard were used in combat against two goblins and a wind sprite. Combat used Journey init and facing. Combat lasted 66 ticks, with the PCs succeeding.

Notes

• Ability scores were built with three silos: 18, 14, 10. This seemed to work out relatively well.
• Defender base damage needs to be average as opposed to poor.
• Craft DCs need to be worked on. As it stands, it seems rather easy to break the system. A PC built to craft can easily abuse the system at 1st-level.
• Heavy armor needs to be finetuned in terms of WT, as it screwed the defender in the scaling init (+18 for a standard or move, whereas the wizard was getting +8 and the monsters +7 to +9).
• 4e monsters seem to convert rather nicely into the system, though the attack rolls seemed swingy.
• HP amounts seem about right.
• Character creation is a rather intensive affair, primarily due to having to generate equipment. This will only be worsened when weapons are done.
• Armor and shield HP seem to be working out acceptably. More extensive playtests will be required, though, to ensure they're right.
• Trauma seems to be working fine. More extensive playtests will be required to ensure that it's working as intended, though.
• Facing did not seem to exacerbate time required for combats.
• Calculating scaling initiative was mildly time-consuming, but once the DM figured out that he needed the WT and SPD of all characters, not just the monsters, it went a lot smoother. Time delays for this were not extensive towards the end of the combat.
• Scaling initiative has a lot of "fiddly bits," what with having to track dodge attempts. Also, there seems to be some disconnect between dodge defense and reflex saves - you can only dodge so many times, but can reflex save infinitely? These seem conceptually similar, and so this may need some examination.
• 5-foot steps were determined to be a +2 ATB action. This was sometimes not noticed, though it sometimes did matter.