Monday 14 February 2022

Playtesting some Psionic Sorcery Battles


So I wanted to test my psionics a bit so we decided to get out my battleboard and homebrew splatbooks and make a 4th lv sorcerer using my psionics spell list. Firstly I found some problems emerged in my sorcerer class since I added weapon group skills and JB wanted a composite bow and a two-handed sword and this bit of brokenness was revealed. I actually wanted shortsword to be under several skill classes. Also, I added a sorcery point mechanic and I need some rework on that and integrate it better into my weird magical skills so need to edit my sorcerers a bit.

A few spell bugs were found but overall we made two quite different characters. We made a ruler from a precious 70s souvineer wood ruler and went for an indoor scale with no terrain. JB's character was tougher than mine and had more combat skills and my guy was more based on acting like a wizard and running away and survival but had a flashy cloak fighting skill and a magic cloak and had better AC. JB did take lots of defensive magic and tried to get invisibility to work but it didn't. My guy just used hold person spells then used lots of mind bolts while foe paralysed. My spells were -1 to save vs -4 with hold person vs one target and my save vs spells was 6 or less 7 with a magic ring. JB saves were also -1 to save vs and noneof his spells to reduce mine worked as I was lucky. His save was much higher and he used a mental defence spell and got another +2 so his save vs spells was like 14 and he failed often. So pounding away with hold person was great the same character trying to kill the paralysed target was harder cos of HP (I guess I've decided they are not as helpless as sleeping .

 A second battle JB won the initiative and it was closer. I guess there is a lot of running in and out of range and timing stuff right. Also, I got Mirror Images which proved pretty good. The third time around JB won and we both were close and saving throws proved the winning formula. It ended with my knives vs him with a shortsword and me losing.

So we levelled them up and placed four tokens either a treasure or a zombie and took turns placing dungeon walls and went at it. He still hoped I would get close despite my best efforts and I got my zombies to chase him and he had two zombies tailing him slowly. I used a 3rd lv illusion and burned him and he failed to realise it was fake and failed to see zombies unharmed but once was away from me saw illusionary burns just strange welts, He managed to Hex me giving me 5 rounds with -4 all my rolls so I fled and used illusionary fire to conceal me and had to make sure I could see the area I was projecting stuff. I also cast two regenerate wounds spells and healed up the ranged kinetic and mental bolts I was nearly killed by. JB battled the zombies as was sick of them and I had used all but cantrips. Once again I healed most of my HP in the fight and he didn't and I stalled and fled lots. So I guess wizard duels have lots of jogging around in circles at low levels.

It did have own feel vs druids or wizards or clerics. I considered a special psionics class but I think as in my rules non humans or bards can choose any of the 4 spell lists as their type. Maybe when I write it up mentalism/psionics could be the native spell type for them but they could pick others. Next stop go edit my current players book.

It was an alternative to watching vids anyway. Running stuff points out obvious flaws I can miss like those maps where I had rooms not connected to anything.

JB vs zombies while I hide behind my illusion healing and waiting for a hex spell to end reducing my saves. I went from 1hp to 15hp while he got whittled down and hurt by zombies. Gold coins are our luck points - one reroll each. Grey chests are objectives 1-3=random treasure 4-6=a zombie. We started using individual initiative each round and this was good for 1vs1. Before battle we placed four objectives then took turns placing a wall with 6 each.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I love and welcome feedback but not spambots
Good feedback and suggestions inspire me to write more