FrankenFourth: Another Druid & Fighter Playtest

Cast

• Merric (3rd-level human fighter)
• Pikala (3rd-level elf druid)

Summary

Merric and Pikala arrived at a village just in time to catch a post rain-calling ceremony mishap: apparently the sacred stone disk used for the ritual doubled as a cap to a pit leading to a section of the underworld; while the priest was able to complete the ritual, one of his assistants failed to stop it from rolling off of the cliff and shattering on the ground below.

This was quickly followed by a group of lemures emerging from the pit. Very slow and very stupid, it was a simple task for Merric and Pikala to destroy them, after which the village priest explained that he needed to venture to a nearby temple and retrieve a new disk. Since it was infested with harpies, he naturally wanted both of them to accompany him.

As harpies are wont to do, they initially attempted to keep their distance and charm the characters with their alluring voices. Not only were they both able to resist, but Pikala conjured a storm cloud and began blasting them with bolts of lightning. This forced them to close the distance in an effort to tear Pikala apart with their talons, but Merric interposed himself, suffering only a few scratches before the harpies were slaughtered.

The temple had been dilapidated through time and neglect. While the priest was occupied searching the rubble for an appropriately sized-and-shaped stone to bless, Merric and Pikala rummaged about for anything of value. They'd only found a few gemstones by the time the priest was ready to go, but at least they wouldn't be leaving empty-handed.

By the time they returned not only had more lemures crawled out of the pit, they were also accompanied by a dark-skinned, infernal warrior wielding a wicked spear and carrying a large shield. Pikala tried tying up the lemures with her nature magic, but had to quickly change tactics and focus on the warrior with Merric; even with their combined attacks, Merric was barely standing by the time they finished the warrior off.

Fortunately, without the warrior supporting them the lemures were of little consequence: Pikala didn't even have to use any of her magic to heal Merric. While the pair finished off the last of the lemures, the priest and a few other villagers replaced the stone disk, sealing the pit and preventing more from climbing out.

Design Notes

This playtest session was handled by Melissa, giving me a chance to play a sufficiently talented druid, though I only ended up using Call Lightning and Entangle throughout the session. Entangle is an area-effect attack that can also restrain on a failed save, while Call Lightning lets you continuously bombard a single target for a minute.

It only costs one Favor to activate (and can deal a bit more damage if there's a storm already going, such as one made using the Weather-Worker talent), but then unlike wizards and clerics, druids don't get an at-will magical attack.

Adam was much more satisfied with the fighter this time around, what with there being enough enemies for him to use his exploits on (especially Sweeping Strike). We all agreed that his AC was a bit on the high end: it's 17 right now, and that's without masterwork/magic armor or special materials. So, I'm gonna reduce shields to a flat +1 bonus and see how that works out.

Announcements

If you're curious about FrankenFourth and/or Dungeons & Delvers, you can find public alpha documents here and here respectively.

The Rogue is our latest alternate-addition to the Dungeon World core class roster. If you want something different and/or more flexible than the thief, be sure to check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).