hobbygamers ~ View topic - Playtest Post-Mortem discussions.

All right, the paragon playtest earlier was a fascinating experience.

First off, well-balanced monster teams really do work. I simply threw the default level 11 Foulspawn encounter group at the demo party, and the battle was a tough and fun slog.

Offhand observations:
-You may have a lot of new attack types to work with, but so will the enemy.
-Your damage output increases, but it doesn't quite yet seem to catch up to enemy hp (take this with a grain of salt, as I haven't quite run it through a rigorous math test). This seems to lead to longer encounter times. We spent almost 2 hours in combat, and even allowing 30 minute allowance for Q getting into the flow of the new system (and he did do a pretty good job as a solid-wall paladin) we still have 30 min above our average combat times. And we didn't have a lot of OOC and IC interruptions thrown in as well.

The next playtest scheduled will take the same 11th level characters versus a solo. After that, we graduate to the level 16 characters versus groups and solos.

As a leader, I haven't much seen any difference in its playstyle. It's still the guy who tries to heal/power up the team with its powers/abilities.

Healing word scales well with your HP, as 55 points of damage was healed with one healing word O_O
..though i was a dwarf cleric/combat veteran (add con to healing surge value. TWICE) and i had belt of vigor (+1!)

Is it possible to playtest our creations?

Course. The intention at the moment is to get a feel for paragon levels so we can compare potential Paragon Paths, monsters, etc, especially from a game design and mechanics standpoint.

Currently, it's all still core, but if you guys want to graduate to include insider, FRPG, MP, etc, let's talk about it after the solo playtest.

Btw, this coming Monday, I'm trying to run Mother of All Monsters, so we might not playtest. Check back for updates.