Way of the Wicked 7

Purcy the rogue was missing tonight so he volunteered to run the rituals while everyone else did stuff.

The night began with the Horn of Abbadon under siege. The new party wizard was out constructing traps around the Horn when he was ambushed and chased off. The mysterious arrivals were not attacking the horn but just those coming or going. There was some debate about whether to ignore the threat or face it and it was decided that facing it was better. Shatog, the Bloodrager lured the attackers out into the open and the battle began. It was a group of 6 barbarian warriors let by some sort of priestess. Although the warriors could hit quite hard they went down quickly to the hasted Bloodrager and Anti-paladin. The priestess fled back into the forest.

The wizard began work on repairing the alchemical golem that was found when first exploring the Horn. He needed some supplies from Farholde and so took a trip into town. He had a chat with the Baron who extended an invitation to the party to his 105 birthday party. After he was met by the White Ravens (the 7th Knot) and was persuaded into taking the cleric Trik back to the Horn for a tour.  He was kept blindfolded but given a tour of the sanctum where the ritual is taking place.

The White Ravens informed the 9th Knot (our villains) that a team of adventures were setting out for the horn and provided a good description of each member as well as where they were expected to go first. The villains laid an ambush for the party and the heroes died quickly. No prisoners were taken.

The next week, late in the night Purcy informed the group of something odd. Through his scrying he had spotted 3 boggards wandering the first level of the complex.He continued to watch and they seemed to be exploring. After a few hours they left. The next night they returned to explore the second level and an ambush was set. The battle went poorly for the intruders. One of the boggards kept slipping and falling on a Grease spell. One was focus-fired down quickly and the third managed to escape. Shatog tried to follow the escapee but fell into the party's own pit trap after missing a jump check and then failing a saving throw. Examination of the bodies indicated that one of the intruders was actually a Lillend and the second was a Moon Dog. The escapee was also likely a Moon Dog since it plane-shifted away after getting outside of the green aura.

I hope everyone had fun because this is only week 6 of approximately 31. Everyone leveled up to 8 and the next waves of heroes, treasure hunters, and monsters are on their way. The next few sessions will largely follow the same format as this one although the enemies will be varied.

Paizo Advanced Class Guide: Preview

I don't know why they don't do these releases via Bittorrent? Instead they crash their website for half the day, losing sales and annoying their fans who want to read the play test.

That bitch aside here are my first impressions of the new classes in the playtest:

Arcanist: It is a full arcane caster so its going to be insanely powerful. It is basically a wizard with delayed (sorcerer) casting but more flexible casting options. Seems pretty solid.

Bloodrager: Barbarian with limited arcane (Magus spells) casting and a bloodline. Loses all Rage powers. Seems solid.

Brawler: An improvement over the vanilla Monk but I'm not convinced we have a winner here. A much sturdier melee combatant and less MAD. I'd like to see one in action.

Hunter: Don't care for it. If you wanted a full power animal companion as a ranger you could get it by spending a couple feats. I'm not a fan of Teamwork feats and that your animal companion shares yours seems to be the big draw here. This class loses the ranger's martial prowess and the druid's 9th level spells and gets Teamwork feats? No thanks.

Investigator: The rogue killer. Seriously why would anyone ever play a rogue ever again? You lose a little bit of sneak attack, 2 skills per level, and evasion. You gain alchemy and a ton of cool tricks that come with it, a bunch of neat poison stuff, Inspiration, and Investigator talents which are at least as good if not better than Rogue talents.

Shaman: Cleric like casting (wisdom, prepared, no delay), blends mysteries with hexes. I'm sure there is stuff in there to love. Seems pretty solid.

Skald: Bardbarian. Seems very niche, more of an archetype for bard then a full blown alternate class. The bestow rage power is cool but would really only benefit large groups with lots of melee fighters. Spell Kenning (cast any arcane spell) give this class great versatility - as long as you are not in a rush.

Slayer: The other reason to never play a rogue again. For people that think rogues should be deadly melee opponents this is the class for you. An unlimited use, more flexible but less powerful Favored enemy, slower sneak attack progression, Ranger saves, Ranger BAB, Rogue talents.

Swashbuckler: I can see what this class is trying to be. It is a decent melee combatant that hits easily but doesn't do much damage. It does, however have a ton of tricks at its disposal, cool tricks but most are limited. I like the flavor, but I'm afraid for most campaigns this guy would be an underachiever, but probably really fun to play.

Warpriest: Hmm, a cleric with crappy casting but nicer weapons and armor. Does get lots of bonus feats but doesn't say anything about being able to choose fighter only feats. Would make a strong archer, but I think for melee combat the cleric is the stronger choice.

So that's my initial impression. I have not tried any builds yet or seen any in play. I rather question the existence of some of them but I'm sure they will find people who will love them (maybe even me). They do render the rogue obsolete and put another nail in the monk's coffin (other than some of the strong monk archetypes, I don't know why you would play one anymore).

I am going to try to squeeze the Skald into an upcoming encounter and I see a spot when I could swap in the Bloodrager. The brawler and Slayer are intriguing and I'm sure I can squeeze them in somewhere. Let's see if they can score some kills this weekend (or if any of the replacement PCs use classes from the playtest).