Just because I have nothing better to do, and am very much in a good mood, I thought I might post a bit of the third playtest up here.
Character creation was slow, but that is normal for my group regardless of system, though I know now that I have to have a list of all spells by category for players to see instead of the massive combined list that I currently have.
Characters are all Sheng'po, which are basically non-magical kitsune/fox people. Setting is Vhraeden, the nation of Southern Kalemia...which is feudal and the religion is heavily animist. The background is that the area has been recently infested with demonic spirits and they are causing much havoc in the area. The prefect lord is an older warrior and has three sons. The eldest is on a quest and hasn't been heard from in 14 months, the middle son was exiled 15 years ago and the youngest son has led the prefect's army to aid the Emperor in a war against a rebellious portion of the Empire.
The characters are a feudal warrior that was sent by the Imperial Government to protect the aging lord since his prefect is on the border of two other nations; a priestess that was in love with the middle son and when he was exiled, she joined the priesthood; an undercover spy from a rival clan masquerading as a servant and the second son (as an NPC) in disguise.
The player characters met at court and soon retired for the evening. As soon as everyone was getting ready for sleep the assassin struck. They made it into the castle and out without anyone detecting them and successfully poisoned the lord. They do determine that something is wrong when the lord has a spastic coughing fit. They rush in and determine that he was poisoned, and are able to stop it, but the Lord will still die if the antidote isn't found.
The PC's have to wander out into a blizzard and retrieve some magical components to save the poisoned lord's life. Off they go.
They wander for a day since none of them took Navigation and they left at night, in a blizzard
They had an encounter with a spider demon that pretty much kicked their ass until the priestess killed it with her staff and the spy and warrior were pretty worthless. The NPC then makes himself known and offers to "watch the horse" since they couldn't take the horse up the mountain with them. The NPC then puts a spell of protection upon the horse and off they go up the mountain.
They climb all day and then make camp. The warrior falls asleep on guard (typical soldier
) and they get attacked by a large demonic ogre. They kill it rather quickly (in about half the time as the giant spider demon, which is odd since the ogre had about 6 times the hit points), but they rolled well and the priestess used a lot of her spiritualist summoning abilities to gain a few allies in the combat so that helped a lot.
They defeat the ogre and get some magical loot, since everyone likes loot
Off they proceeded and fall down a mountain, well slid...for a long time, but took no damage (think a steep ski slope) and they had to start climbing again. On a ledge, they stopped for the night and discover a cave entrance and of course, go inside. The priestess and NPC make camp there, but the warrior and spy go "investigating" and awaken an ancient spirit of a disgraced warrior that had become an avatar of Nyarlathotep (a big fan of Call of Cthulhu...sue me)...
They decide not to make a bargain with it, but do manage (through the use of bluff and a roll of 01% on Honor, although the warrior almost blew it by hiding behind the priestess
) to win the respect of the being...so instead of fighting them, it lets them pass unmolested to the area where the herbs they seek are located (in a caldera at the top of the mountain, where a 4 square mile "tropical paradise" is located due to geothermal activity).
They go there and are attacked by feathered dinosaurs, and instead of defeating them, manage to scare them off by setting a few trees on fire. My NPC gets mauled badly and the priestess is able to save him, but uses all her Magic Points to do so...which means I need to figure out a way of magic being less "wonky"...having a healing power with 20% isn't all that useful apparently
So instead of fighting the Ogre Demon Lord...I had him be asleep. At that point instead of the SPY sneaking over and getting the herbs un-noticed, the priestess has to go instead. They get the herbs, teleport back (one of the magic items given to them as loot from the Ogre, a mirror of teleportation...) and save the lord.
Things I learned from this adventure...magic as a skill is nice to balace player abilities (fighters, mages, psions, clerics, technological types), but the fact that a character can spend Magic Points and then fail the roll really seems to piss players off...need to fix that.
As for character creation, I need to make the list of skills and spells and powers broken down by type and alphabetized...a huge list of alphabetical spells not divided by power slows down character creation to a freaking CRAWL...
Well, that's a quick rundown of this playtest.
Fire at will...
-STS