On Tuesday night it was my great privilege to play a session of ACKS with Alexander Macris, Greg Tito, and the Bloody Band. It was my first actual session of play using the system and I think it worked well at high levels. I will have to find out for myself how well it works at lower levels and explore the domain system more, but I suspect it will be just as good. The pacing of combat was great and nothing seemed overly complex.
Prior to the game session, Mr. Macris helped me create two custom classes with the Player’s Companion based on ideas I had: the Venturer and the Nobiran Wonderworker. The Venturer is a would be merchant-prince, a real people person who combines Thief-like abilities with some arcane power later on in order to build and secure their mercantile empire. The Nobiran Wonderworker is a Cleric-Mage of weak fighting ability but great spellcasting prowess. I believe a refined version of both classes will be appearing in the Player’s Companion, and I hope you all like them.
For the one-off, I made a Wonderworker by the name of Artashumara who teamed up with the legendary Blood Band to navigate the bleak Cthnonic Darkness and stop the evil goddess Nasga from invading the mortal realm. Before the rest of the group showed up I created a basic stronghold and dungeon underneath which was randomly populated based on the terrain, all good fun. An even cooler preliminary step, Artashumara was able to successfully crossbreed the dire wolves that turned up in his dungeon with an adult blue dragon to create the fearsome Stormstalkers: scaly hounds with lashing tails and lightning breath! Throughout the adventure I got to see all the basic classes do their thing, though at high levels; but I can attest that everyone comes across as satisfyingly powerful in their own ways. Combat flowed smoothly and it ebbed flowed more than I’m used to, which was actually pretty cool.