Dungeons & Delvers 2nd Edition Playtest, Part 3

With the party now up to 2nd-level, I decided to run a kick-in-the-door style dungeon crawl to stress test the Defense and Armor Class mechanics. Specifically, if it's too good or complicated to be worthwhile.

Each time they opened a door, there would be 1d4+2 skeletons, maybe a ghost if a felt like it (either some wisps or a shroud) pulled randomly from our assortment of Reaper minis. Each skeleton would be equipped with whatever the minis were, which meant that skeletons would almost always be equipped with a shield (giving them a base Defense of 14) and either an arming sword (1d8 damage) or spear (1d6 damage, Reach, AP 1).

Some would also be equipped with crappy armor, which would grant DR 4 and an AC of +5. How this works is as follows:

All of these particular skeletons have a Defense of 14 (or 12 if you can remove or destroy their shield). If you roll a 14 or higher on your Attack Roll, you hit and inflict damage.

The ones wearing armor still have a Defense of 14, but also an Armor Class of 19 (you add the armor's AC modifier to Defense). This means that a total Attack Roll of 14-18 hits, but is partially absorbed by the armor's DR of 4, while a total Attack Roll of 19 or higher bypasses the armor completely.

Skeletons have bludgeoning vulnerability 3 and piercing resistance 3, meaning that the former would almost completely offset the DR from armor (or deal a bunch of extra damage if you bypassed it), while piercing weapons were going to be almost certainly useless.

Unfortunately, the cleric was armed with a spear. The nomad was also packing a light crossbow but had an arming sword as a backup.

During the first encounter, the cleric got mobbed by skeletons and was whittled down to 0 WP when the encounter was over. This put her into Dead Man Walking, but she was able to patch herself up with a few Healing Words.

After a 10-minute Short Rest they went into the next room, which also contained four skeletons. Here the barbarian was able to bottleneck the skeletons, though by the time it was over her impressive 18 WP and 7 VP was knocked down to only 12 WP. With the cleric's Favor halfway depleted, they opted to Short Rest her VP back up to 7 before pressing on.

The last room contained three skeletons, though this time I equipped one in something close to plate armor to see how the party would fare. Plate armor currently is DR 10 and AC +10, but I figured it was old and damaged, so would only be worth DR 8 and +8 AC. He didn't have a shield, so that made him Defense 12 and AC 20.

The barbarian rushed in, and even with Furious Attack and a longsword inflicted no damage (plate absorbed it all). The cleric and nomad went after the other skeletons: the cleric got stabbed a bit, though the nomad's Redirect Attack Discipline (Reaction to cause an attack to target someone else) helped avoid some damage (it didn't do so well at inflicting damage, however, as he ended up redirecting spear attacks).

I expected the fight to drag on a bit, but on the following round, the barbarian obliterated the skeleton knight with a critical Furious Attack, which not only bypassed the plate entirely but inflicted well over 20 points of damage (didn't even bother rolling on the critical hit tables). After that, it was a pretty easy mop-up.

They cracked open a sarcophagus, which contained over 1,000 sp worth of assorted loot (this game uses a silver standard so it's quite a bit), and we stopped for the night due to dealing with a toddler and baby.

DESIGNER'S NOTES

The nomad and cleric had a helluva time due to their piercing weapons. But they've learned to bring at least a club or something as a backup. Even an axe would have been a far superior option. I'll suggest they bust down a door and use something like that. Maybe improvise a flail using some rope.

Even with armor, it didn't seem to drag out combat all that much. In a standard AC-only system it would have gone by more quickly, but to be fair the party consists of a barbarian, a cleric without any attack spells, and something similar to a rogue, just without Sneak Attack or some other damaging special ability (the nomad does have these options, but our son opted for more utilitarian Disciplines).

So combat takes a bit longer (especially with bad luck), but I think they're doing really well. Still no real need for a Long Rest, which is great because I'm not a fan of clearing out a few rooms, then having to flee the scene and go to bed. 

The DR helps, but even against mere skeletons the cleric has almost died twice, and the barbarian is currently halfway there. So far the players feel like things are going about as expected: no one feels "too safe", and they don't feel like the monsters are too tough/annoying.

Everyone's around 80 XP away from level 3 (each skeleton is worth like 10 per character). Next level up I'll see about giving the cleric an attack Miracle, just to see how that plays out.

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