As a result, I was somewhat sceptical of the second packet. Would it be any better? Well, one hopes so – the object of a playtest is to improve the game. I just hoped that we’d be starting from a better platform.

The intention of this session was to have one DM (me) and five players, but life intervened and we only had three players. So, Rich played a hill dwarf fighter, Paul a mountain dwarf cleric, and Martin a elf thief. I set this adventure in the Great Kingdom of Greyhawk, about the year 605 C.Y., in my personal version of the World of Greyhawk – thus, the Great Kingdom looks absolutely nothing like how it was represented in any official supplement. I take my inspiration for the Great Kingdom from Byzantine Rome, along with a few other elements.

I’ve been reading a few military fantasies of late, so I wanted to try and run one of those in this game. If you’ve read the same novels as me, you should pick up on the references.

The game began with the group as newly-minted soldiers of the Great Kingdom, part of the Seventh Army, 3rd Platoon, 5th Squad. (I have no idea exactly what those numbers mean; I’ll create more details as the situation warrants). They were introduced to their sergeant, Hairy, and soon enough the command came for them to move out – the Seventh Army was needed to take back a keep that had fallen to goblin raiders.

Seems like the whole army is overkill? Oh, yes – I wasn’t letting these new recruits in on the whole story. Mind you, Martin headed off when the army stopped for the night outside a village to spy on the officers – in particular the Fist, Morcan, and the Army’s Mage, Julian. He did a fairly good job of sneaking in, but not enough to get past Julian’s magical senses, and so he was thrown aside by an invisible hand, after which he returned to the squad.

I also took the time to introduce a couple of members of the third squad: Bottle and Gesler, who didn’t take that kindly to Martin’s rather fumbled attempts to introduce himself to them.

At this point, though we’d had some useful roleplaying, there hadn’t been that much use of the new system, just a few skill checks which Martin aced – mostly. The floor of the skill checks seemed somewhat high, especially given his rather good bonuses. (I don’t think he could roll below a 16 in a trained skill…)

Upon reaching the area of the fort, some of the squads, including the PCs one, were ordered to take and fortify a nearby hill. Taking it wasn’t hard – there was no resistance – but upon trying to dig trenches and put stakes in the ground, the squads were attacked by cave rats, boiling out of the ground.

This was an Easy fight according to the guidelines; I only dealt with the PCs and their rats (five), assuming that the other soldiers would fight effectively. The group, as expected, dealt with it easily and I don’t believe anyone was wounded.

Bottle began worrying about the goblins having an animal shaman – the rat attack seemed unnatural and something that a goblin spell-caster would be capable of affecting. However, no other attacks took place on the hill, and after a couple of days, the group was rotated back to the main force.

Shortly thereafter, they needed to scout the keep. Hairy had noticed Martin’s ability to sneak, so he dressed Rich and Paul in medium armour (studded leather), so they had a chance of successfully sneaking, and Martin was sent with his two bodyguards to see what they could find at the keep. Martin made some opposed rolls against the goblin patrols’ Perception checks, and succeeded in getting the group through. (My thought was that Martin would use his Perception to see the best path after Sneaking ahead, and then wave the others up when they were less likely to be spotted).

The group found the keep walls somewhat crumbling and with a few rents in them, and counted a couple of hundred goblins inside; they chose not to advance further and risk exposure, and so returned to the army with their news. As the army had upwards of a thousand soldiers, the Fist chose to order an attack on the next day, with the PC’s squad going forth first along with the sappers, armed with a few munitions to blast open the walls.

This worked, but the PCs had to face some goblins before they could escape: 3 goblins and 2 cave rats, or an Average combat. It was still fairly easy, especially as the group could take advantage of the terrain, and we got to see Rich use his fighter’s combat manoeuvres; we were really happy with how they worked, as it allowed him to choose between being deadly or defensive (he opted, mainly, for the defensive). I was slightly frustrated at the goblin melee attacks, which are very weak.

However, although the keep was breached, it became obvious that there were more than a couple of hundred goblins – more goblins (a LOT more) were camped in the hills behind the keep, and the sappers had to hastily retreat. I now threw a tough combat at the group – goblin leader and six goblins. This one was more difficult for the players, but it still felt like they were handling it well. Again, terrain was more on their side than the goblins. It *did* require Paul to burn through his healing, however. The healing was a lot more effective than the first playtest package, and it integrated well with the poor healing rules I was using (no HP regained, only a few Hit Dice regained per night). Paul was able to keep the party healthy.

Early the next morning – with the party having regained their spells – I had the goblins attack the fortified army. It was presaged by a small earthquake; obviously their shaman was more powerful than first thought. This knocked over a lot of the entrenchments, so the goblins were able to attack more easily than otherwise. I used the advantage rules to allow the party some aid during the first couple of rounds as the goblins were navigating the remaining entrenchments, and then the goblins were fully upon them: 6 goblins, 2 hobgoblins and a goblin leader.

If this seems a lot tougher than the last, this was due to the fact that the party had gained a level already. After only three combats? This seemed entirely too fast, but at least it allowed us to see how level 2 combat worked. Rich’s fighter remained extremely effective, using his manoeuvre dice to parry some of the attacks that were getting through. One thing I wasn’t enjoying was the very weak goblin melee attacks. Paul was kept busy healing Rich, but managed to get a couple of blows in, and Martin picked the goblins off from range. It actually felt like a tough combat, though again they navigated it successfully.

That was all we had time for in the session, and I’m feeling a lot more positive about the playtest material now. The game worked well even with only three players, and the combats went fast – very important. I’m not sure about Martin’s rogue – he took the Thug and was able to sneak attack when two allies were adjacent to the same creature. This seemed very strong, although in this group it didn’t happen that often, it can only be more powerful with more players. Paul seemed to be stuck healing than attacking a bit too much for my liking, but he did get the channel+attack power at 2nd level, so that will likely change.