The second play-test went well and there was much excitement to be had. There were five players this time, two returning players and three new players. The new players played an elf cleric and two dwarven brothers, a rogue and a fighter. The new players arrived in the town (also known as The Town) and immediately met up with two of the veterans from the last session, a druid and a craftsman, who were looking for able bodies to venture back into the wilderness. The new group set out and spend a lovely morning crossing the river ford and venturing up the old trail towards the hilltop lookout they had marked on their map. A few miles up the path they spotted some carrion birds in the sky and discovered the bodies of a woodsman pierced with crude spears and the body of a small reptilian biped who appeared to have been the remains of a combat some days past. After investigating, they continued along the trail and came to the base of the hills where they realized that they had come across the territory of a old One eye, a large grizzly bear. The rogue slunk ahead to see what they were dealing with but botched his sneak and the bear came chasing after him. I described the large and powerful bear charging towards them and the party chose to stand their their ground eager for a scrap.
The party landed a good number of blows on the bear and had it flanked so they were getting advantage on their attacks, however when the bear landed a hit it was almost always enough to take out a PC. In 4-5 rounds the bear was badly wounded but there were three characters on the ground. At this point the cleric rushed to aid them so they would not bleed out and die and the brave craftsman engaged with the bear chose to lead it away down the path with yells and taunts. He knew he was outmatched but nevertheless he succeeded in luring the bear away form the clearing and managed to last one more round before being mauled to death. While the enraged bear was chewing on the brave hero, the cleric dragged the three unconscious companions into the nearby bear-cave and pulled down the rocks, dirt and branches blocking off the entrance. Then she ran as fast as she could back to town.
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| Artist rendition of the beast. |
Once back in the town the cleric looked for someone to help her rescue her friends and found a halfling cleric who agreed to return with her to the bear cave in the morning. She rested in the inn and regained her HP, and in the morning she led her new companion back and they quietly snuck into the clearing and made their way to the cave, avoiding the wounded bear they could still hear off in the woods. They carefully made an opening and once inside they sealed it off again and then turned to healing their companions. The reunited party was still quite hurt and decided to spend the rest of the day in the stinky bear cave. They ate and slept listening as the confused animal clawed at the branches and rocks outside.
The next day they quietly moved the rocks and debris blocking them in and went searching for the wounded bear. While they had managed to recover most of their HP, two of them were still badly hurt (-3 STR). They managed to surprise the wounded bear, and after a short but tense battle they felled the beast. They skinned the bear and then returned to the trail to find the body of their fallen comrade. They found his remains and proceeded to bury him by the trail side. Good words were said and then the party divided up his belongings as is the way of the wilds. The party continued another mile down the path and finally saw the high bluffs of the lookout spot on their map, however they also saw it was crowned with a old stone fort and there were figures moving around it. They decided they were not ready for another encounter so soon and so returned to town to prepare for a later return.
This was a good session and everyone seemed to have a good time, even with the beatings and the untimely death. The consensus was that they realized they had bit off more then they could chew but the eventual victory and the heroics were entertaining anyway. The initiative system seemed to be well received and again players seemed to get the idea right away. Some of the players had played long ago using the phased combat and they said they remembered it as confusing, so this was a validation that its better now. Also the skill system seems to be pretty understandable to new players as they quickly picked up which stat and skill combinations might apply to their actions. I didn't have any incidents where a player didn't think they would be able to attempt an action e.g. investigate the combat scene, hide in the bushes, track a bear... but they did see quickly that they would be more effective at some actions than others so that is really good in my books. I flushed out a few more places where the new rules are not documented consistently and will be putting up a 7.1 version of the PDF pretty soon to deal with that.
Good fun and can't wait to play again.
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