[.11] Oregon Playtest - Sept 21-23 - Thoughts and Musings

Were the spellstrikes via Empowered Strike or through one of the new rituals? I've been trying to do my builds item-independent right now, and Empowered Strike is meh due to prof tie-in, but maybe that's where my hangup is for a spellsword build I'd enjoy. I just need to start adding a few base items as well and see how I feel.

The way I've seen people thinking about it (and thought about it myself for my Spellsword) is to aim Empowered Strike at your low-level spellstrikes - things like Bind, Repel, Weakness, Pin, Shatter for offense; Cleanse, Awaken, Weapon Shield, Poison Shield, and of course healing for the defensive end of things. Save the Warrior's Incantations / Memory Strikes for the Confine/Purify/Prison/Doom level stuff.

-Bryan
 
I had 10 Warrior's Incants for spells like Confine and Prison. I mem'd a lot of Evocation for my Combined Strike. I didn't actually take Empowered Strike, but it's an idea. Everything else I just threw. Pew pew.
 
I had 10 Warrior's Incants for spells like Confine and Prison. I mem'd a lot of Evocation for my Combined Strike. I didn't actually take Empowered Strike, but it's an idea. Everything else I just threw. Pew pew.

I have a build in mind for Peter to try out lots of Empowered Strike Weaknesses and Binds. Unfortunately I don't think I will get a chance to playtest him in this cycle - too many other characters come first :D Too Many Characters Problems.
 
Were the spellstrikes via Empowered Strike or through one of the new rituals? I've been trying to do my builds item-independent right now, and Empowered Strike is meh due to prof tie-in, but maybe that's where my hangup is for a spellsword build I'd enjoy. I just need to start adding a few base items as well and see how I feel.
I had 31 Spellstrikes via warriors incant. I am a level 40 templar I took zero Empowered strike. It is terrible imo. 3 build to change teh mode of a spell without any gain in power and a limit so you cant even do it with the best spells. Hard pass for me. Atleast Disarm strike and such strikes generate an extra effect per day.
 
They used a new Dawnsteel golem.
Just chiming in here like a jerk to say this was a custom creature I made for a specific mod that didn't get a chance to run, and I'm super curious how they felt to fight.
 
Just chiming in here like a jerk to say this was a custom creature I made for a specific mod that didn't get a chance to run, and I'm super curious how they felt to fight.
Well, I mean, it had Innate Bane to Shatter effects so it confused the hell out of us casters for a bit, I tell you what.

(If you wrote the card I would like to point out that "Innate" is improperly spelled with one "n" in it and it was driving me crazy to look at.)
 
I'm hoping you didn't lose a ton of stuff to Shatter, but yeah, it was designed so you couldn't just blow it up with spells. There's an in-game reason for it, I promise. ;)

In my defense of the typo, I didn't write the card, just told the writer what to put on it. :p
 
One of my primary concerns about how many anti-spell defenses were experienced is that it will push people away from playing full casters and more towards spellsword/adept, purely because offensive spellcasting is less valuable than swinging stick all day.

If C casters can’t stick spells, we won’t have C casters, and then they get Wands again, and then I start my crusade for Earth Wands. This is a cycle. :p
 
One of my primary concerns about how many anti-spell defenses were experienced is that it will push people away from playing full casters and more towards spellsword/adept, purely because offensive spellcasting is less valuable than swinging stick all day.

If C casters can’t stick spells, we won’t have C casters, and then they get Wands again, and then I start my crusade for Earth Wands. This is a cycle. :p
I was not a full Celestial scholar, but most of the spells I threw stuck. I remember in the big battle on Saturday night wishing very badly that I had many more Disarms and Shatters because they were hitting and making a difference against the mobs we were fighting. I memorized lots of defenses, binding, prisons and lots of evocation. Opening night we learned about some of the creatures that Baned back our binding but it was less whacky, in my experience, than most of the spell defenses in 1.3.
 
I was not a full Celestial scholar, but most of the spells I threw stuck. I remember in the big battle on Saturday night wishing very badly that I had many more Disarms and Shatters because they were hitting and making a difference against the mobs we were fighting. I memorized lots of defenses, binding, prisons and lots of evocation. Opening night we learned about some of the creatures that Baned back our binding but it was less whacky, in my experience, than most of the spell defenses in 1.3.

Shatter isn't exclusive to Earth so Earth casters could have filled the gap on shatters :)
 
These are my take aways form the Oregon playtest.
4)Slay and assassinate really need verbal ques of "slay" or "assassinate" I saw a ton of people needing it to be pointed out they got hit by something big because it got lost in the attack spam. E.I. 4, 4, 4, 4, 40, 4, 4.... Did you take my Forty? Oh, no didnt realize you did that.

Even with the verbal would this really change anything if someone didn't hear? I understand combat can be hectic but, the same thing has happened to me even with the verbal in 1.3.
 
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Just a quick note to say thanks for these reviews. They were really helpful and fun to read and spurred some great conversations.
Thank you Tantarus and Durnic!
 
Even with the verbal would this really change anything if someone didn't hear? I understand combat can be hectic but, the same thing has happened to me even with the verbal in 1.3.

It is not the not hearing it. It is the registering something different hit you, quickly. With the current version the word slay and assassinate tell you something big hit and you need to respond to it.

With 2.0 it is really hard to tell if someone took your slay if they don't call a defense or acknowledge it. So you feel the need to point it out to make sure they realized something different happened.

With Strikes you hear something different so it is immediately known to you. But with slays and assassinates just changing the number and not even the carrier it is a different story. I saw many times PCs had to point out to NPCs that they hit them with a big slay/assassinate. And Vise versa.
 
I wonder if given more time this might change? Right now we're kind of all trained to expect the same thing. I'll let you know how the second time through this goes.

We didn't really have a ton of this problem at our playtest. Generally slays worked really well. But, I didn't hear a doom blow from behind.
 
We didn't really have a ton of this problem at our playtest. Generally slays worked really well. But, I didn't hear a doom blow from behind.
I used it at our Playtest in September, 100 Doom to the back of the BBG. It did not stick, but it turned him around long enough for my comrades to escape.
 
So my official review for play test in Oregon is as follows: people were able and willing to adapt to the new rules and effects. There were times when it was difficult to remember all of the new rules and what was on your card but for the most part I’m pretty sure that that sort of thing will go away in two or three games. A few spells got mixed up. Like how slow is a binding spell. As far as class balance goes, fighters dominated the game. With their ability to swing for damage all day long and tank along with their defenses which work on nearly everything, it’s my opinion that they’re the best class. We saw a lot of resolute, spell parry, and mettle. Earth scholars were highly effective against undead but we didn’t have enough of them and life spells. One guy ended up resurrecting in an undead fight. It was my understanding that body bloat was supposed to go down and NPCs were supposed to have fewer defenses but I didn’t notice that trend. We only had around 10 earth casters and 5 celestial casters. We ended up having some resurrection hiccups because our normal invested earth circle peeps didn’t have healing arts anymore as they had changed classes.

Friday night we fought undead. They resisted spells such as stun limb and prison, and had spell strikes for evocations. The 2 undead I fought most were immune to binding and were healed by flame and ice. In Seattle and Oregon we have an LCO rule where you call “healed” if an effect heals you unless it is healing, or chaos. That rule wasn’t in effect for the play test, So when I threw fire at them, I was healing one of them without knowing it. I’d like to see “Healed” be a standard call in the rule book.

The NPCs I fought seemed to have the same amount of hit points as in 1.3 and enough resists to shrug off nearly all my spells. From what I experienced most of my spells ended up just making enemies use up their spell defenses. Through augmented magic storms, I was mostly only able to whittle down enemy hp some so fighters could do the heavy lifting. I’d say I dropped about 5 or so enemies over the weekend, though only once or twice by myself. I fought constructs Sunday that reflected the spells I threw, and while I was able to prison one of them because I baned one back, I found out that these constructs were specifically designed to bounce back shatter spells I tried throwing. There were some constructs Saturday whose spell defenses I could blow through with a spell before subjugating them.

The big Saturday night fight had us fighting pc races. Not monsters with racial resists. This was the most effective my spells were the entire weekend. I used my augmented magic storm and potency combo to pick at enemies from behind ally lines. I used recharge prowess for another magic storm. My high magic cloaks ran out for command and curse because they don’t recharge like mettle does, but I was able to use retribution to give me the extra firepower I needed when an enemy hit me with their spells. Later Saturday night we were attacked by red caps. Each of them could resist magic three times, and had a Dodge.

There was a lair card that resulted in a TPK I had the misfortune of stumbling into with a group of low to mid level characters. It was over quick and the undead I was helping fight swung for 7 drain. 1 PC escaped to bring back help, but 4 PCs were engulfed and ressed. Later it took 20-30 PCs and tracking the undead down to retrieve the items lost in that mod. At that time the undead triggered their swarm ability and started swinging for engulf after reviving and renewing undead by voice.

I’ll say that I did have fun this weekend with the npcs that came in to interact with the PCs and with the story plot was telling. In regards to the playtest however, it was VERY frustrating as a level 35 celestial caster with a 9 column to be unable to land most spells. Out of 7 stun limbs, only 1 stuck. Out of 8 prisons only 3 stuck. I did not use many large evocation spells, only 4 or so through the weekend, relying on DOT magic storms.

Spell swap was the most useful utility ritual I used all weekend. So useful! I kept dropping and switching spells from wards, COPs, prisons, magic storms, and even dropping most evocations for spell protections to load up spell stores and refill spell protections on allies.

Recharge prowess was great to get backs storm spells for me to use. I didn’t take any channeling, so augmented storm spells were my sustained source of damage. I had 2 counter spells on me, but never used them all weekend.

Moving forward I plan on taking more active notes during each fight at our next game so I can get better data, because I feel that in order to get a concrete analysis for my feedback I want to use a similar build at the next Oregon playtest and see how the two compare.
 
Great review Ryan! One thing I could suggest, that we use in Calgary, is to have a quick debriefing after every combat with both the PCs and NPCs to see how fights went. It helped us in monster camp as we sent out more monsters. We could quickly review our cards and adjust if things seemed wonky.
 
have fun this weekend with the npcs that came in to interact with the PCs and with the story plot was telling. In regards to the playtest however, it was VERY frustrating as a level 35 celestial caster with a 9 column to be unable to land most spells. Out of 7 stun limbs, only 1 stuck. Out of 8 prisons only 3 stuck. I did not use many large evocation spells, only 4 or so through the weekend, relying on DOT magic storms.

I consider evocation (For pure celestial casters) pretty underwhelming in 2.0 (storms excluded). I pretty much tell this to Cory, Rick, and Bryan and anyone else will will listen to me. So mostly I shout it into the wind. It's something I'd really like to get fixed after 2.0 goes live.
 
In Seattle and Oregon we have an LCO rule where you call “healed” if an effect heals you unless it is healing, or chaos. That rule wasn’t in effect for the play test, So when I threw fire at them, I was healing one of them without knowing it. I’d like to see “Healed” be a standard call in the rule book.
I cannot agree more. The lack of the "Healed" call was aggravating. I think this should be moved on as a national call, not just a west coast thing.
I consider evocation (For pure celestial casters) pretty underwhelming in 2.0 (storms excluded). I pretty much tell this to Cory, Rick, and Bryan and anyone else will will listen to me. So mostly I shout it into the wind. It's something I'd really like to get fixed after 2.0 goes live.
I enjoyed the Evocation I had, and the majority of it landed. Especially when I was swinging them with Combined Strike.
Great review Ryan! One thing I could suggest, that we use in Calgary, is to have a quick debriefing after every combat with both the PCs and NPCs to see how fights went. It helped us in monster camp as we sent out more monsters. We could quickly review our cards and adjust if things seemed wonky.
That's an interesting idea for sure.
 
I consider evocation (For pure celestial casters) pretty underwhelming in 2.0 (storms excluded). I pretty much tell this to Cory, Rick, and Bryan and anyone else will will listen to me. So mostly I shout it into the wind. It's something I'd really like to get fixed after 2.0 goes live.


Isn't this the whole point of play testing? Why wait to fix it after it goes live. If it's an issue, let's work on fixing it now
 
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