Maneuvers!

(This is a guest post from our very own Dman!)

I figured that it would be nice to post the first playtest my group had with D&D Next. Particularly since there seems to be a bunch of talking and little actual playing.

The group consisted of the fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric of Pelor. The party decided to go into the first cave the saw which was cavern D (goblins). I had 10 goblins and 15 kobolds fighting behind the first area of trees with a couple of bugbears sniping around the edge. The PCs did not care to mess with that and went straight into the cave entrance. The wizard cast light on his staff and then listened for noises. He rolled 2d20 and rolled a 20. He heard the sounds from both room 17 and 18, he also heard the patrol (they rolled the 50%). With plenty of warning they set up an ambush that went off flawlessly. The rogue jumped out as the first ones came into sight and planted a bullet between a goblin’s eyes, the fighter missed, but the wizard stepped out and cast burning hands on four of the goblins. None made their saves and they drop smoldering to the floor. Finally, the cleric stepped out and drilled a hole through the last goblin’s chest with a radiant lance. I decided that a low perception test was needed from rooms 17 and 18 with the sounds of combat, billowing fire, and a brilliant flash of light (DC8). Room 18 still missed it, but room 17 did not and sent three goblins to investigate (as the adventure said they would). That battle brought the PCs into room 17 with more flashes of light and screaming goblins. This finally got room 18’s attention and three goblins came to investigate and the other goblins paid the ogre to come and help with whatever is going on.

The goblins arrive first and the elf finally failed a perception test. The goblins have the surprise and drill the mage twice with spears. He is down 10 hit points now. One round is all that is needed for the PCs to wipe out the goblins, but the fighter is out in the middle of the hall as the ogre comes into view. This was the fight I wanted to see. The ogre is huge and with so many hit points I was wondering if the PCs would get stomped by it. Here we go. The initiative goes the fighter, the wizard, the ogre, the cleric, and the rogue. The fighter retreats and we have the first rules question of the game. What kind of action is needed to switch weapons? I decided not to worry about it and used 3.5 were it is part of a move action. The fighter move back into room 17 and fires at the ogre. Hits for minor damage. The wizard shoots a ray of frost and misses. Now the PCs are hoping that the ogre does not move too fast but the cleric is just in its move and 10ft reach. He slams the priest for 13 and drops his hit points to 2. The priest retreats (enjoying that there are no attacks of opportunity) and cast spiritual hammer, hits and does minor damage.  The thief jumps out of hiding and drills the ogre for 13 damage and hides again behind the wizard. The fighter decides to man up, switches weapons again and clobbers the ogre for 17 damage.  The wizard plinks with a magic missile. Now the way I run dumber creatures is that they swing at the one that threatened them the most, as long as they can reach that person, so he swung at the fighter. The ogre rolled a 20 and did 16 damage to him. Good thing the fighter had not taken a wound before this, down to 1 hp. The cleric misses with the spiritual hammer, steps forward and casts a cure light wounds on the fighter (again happy there is no attacks of opportunity). The rogue is a machine and hits again for 11 points of damage. The dwarf cleaves into the ogre for 14, and the wizard plinks again. The fighter hits for the most again and the ogre returns the favor, but only for 9 this time. The fighter is now at 2 hit points. The cleric, out of healing, decides to open up and swings with the hammer and a radiant lance. Both hit for 12 points of damage. The ogre has taken 75 points by now and is on the brink, can the rogue finish him? Nope! The rogue slips on a dead goblin and rolls both dice under five! But now the fighter has a chance for the killing blow! Nope! He is still dizzy from the last attack by the ogre. The ogre grins and lines up the killing blow on the puny priest for hurting him badly this round, swings, but did not realize how badly his left arm had been hit and just throws off its aim (rolled an 8 for a total of 14). The cleric has another chance and misses both attacks again, but finally, out of the shadows, the rogue hurls a sling stone directly between the eyes of the ogre (15 damage) and the ogre drops slowly to the floor. Everyone around the table lets out the breath they were holding.

The characters decide to take a short rest, burn their hit dice (except the rogue who has taken no damage), and the healing potion goes to the crap recovery of the fighter.  Then they explore the stairs, but decide not to try the door after they here the load sounds coming from the other side. They move back to look in room 18. The rogue sneaks a peak (did I mention that the skill mastery or the thief is amazing and a great way to handle that roll, nice to finally have a rogue that is competent at sneaking) and sees one goblin in the dim light. The light tipped off the three remaining goblins though and the fight is on. These goblins are a little smarter and go after the light of the group (the wizard), but being only three strong, they are cut down quickly with only a light hit to the wizard.

They move towards the main lair of the goblins (they did not here the fight) and again skill mastery pays off for the rogue and he sneaks a peak. A LOT of goblins (12). They come up with a plan and attack on the surprise. The wizard rushes out and drops a sleep bomb on the twelve and eight fall asleep and all the kids (ouch, that spell is very nasty). The others follow up and drop two of the remaining goblins. The two goblins left each kick a sleeping ally and run. One to the pantry and the other to get the goblin leader.  The party takes the turn given to them to perform the last rights to a few sleeping goblins. The leader rushes out with his posse (I decided they would not take the time to get the bows because the children were in danger) and engage. I really though the players were in trouble at this point, no daily spells and few hit points. Yet it was anti-climatic compared to the ogre fight. They dropped the leader in the first round by all concentrating on him and then picked off the rest. The goblins did drop the fighter and almost the wizard again, but this one did not feel in doubt.

That was three hours of play and we called it there, the party was going to do a long rest at this point.

My group had a very good time with this adventure and there were only a few rules questions.

1. What kind of action is it to change weapons
2. Can you move diagonally around a corner
3. How did burning hands work diagonally
4. If the rogue hid, but then his cover moved (the priest), was he still hidden

The main things I took from this was:

1. I miss attacks of opportunity. I feel it makes the game more tactical.
2. I miss some kind of advantage for flanking. Again it make the game feel more tactical, gaining the Advantage seems like too much.
3. The rogue will almost always get the Advantage and his sneak attack with the rules this way. Lurking, plus hiding behind large people, plus splitting up the move around the attack makes it very easy to do.
4. The wizard’s magic missile felt really good as an at-will until he faced the ogre, then it was laughable. I think this is the reason they made the spell scale at high levels. If an ogre has 88 hit points, what does dragon have?

So, solid rules for lower level, but I am concerned about these rules at higher levels, and that was highlighted by point four above. If creatures have no stats that get much better but hit points and damage, then hit points will go through the roof and this game will start looking like Final Fantasy. We already see this with the ogre, troll, and minotaur. Does anyone else worry about this?