First adventure with a bunch of RPG noobies!


Beginner Box


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Hi All,
I just started playing the Pathfinder starter Box on Sunday with some friends and had so much fun I wanted to share our experience through the dungeon.
It was a party of three plus the GM. We all used the Heroic characters that came pre made in the box.
Ezren the Wizard, Kyra the Cleric and Valeros the fighter (me).
So we approached the cave and I decided to inspect the Statue, both me and Kyra saw nothing out of the ordinary, but Ezren noticed the acid marks on it. Then the two Goblins attacked! Since Kyra was bending over inspecting the statue, she got stabbed in the ass, Ezren tried waking the other on the head with a stick. This was great because my friend Meg who was running Ezren was making old people jokes the whole time, I think this one mentioned whippersnapper or something. Valeros rushed at the first goblin and turned it into mush with one strike, and after the next round did the same with the other. I took the two lizards they were carrying... you never know.
We walked into the cave and inspected the sleeping straw. Kyra found the chest's key while Valeros kept guard of the hall. In the next room we all put money in the well and got some decent buffs. Valeros, being wary of the voices stood guard in the corridor while the other two checked the room with the gem and the strange light. We all discussed and agreed that we should avoid the red room as it seemed like a trap and our mission was to take on Black Fang. We decided to have another look at it on our way back.
I peaked around the corner to see Goblins arguing with each other. We decided that rushing them was a bad idea as we could not see if there was more of them, so we decided to lure them into the hallway as to fight them all one on one. Valeros shot an arrow at the closest Goblin and hit him in the ear, cutting it off. But the Goblin did not attack, it looked confused and hailed us to come. We heard a voice in broken common saying "come heres, wes got sweet deals for yous!" Not being ready to trust a bunch of Goblins, I shouted back that they should come here... when they refused, I gave them a warning shot of my short bow. This pissed them off and made them attack.
Valeros was holding them off extremely effectively in the hall, so Kyra got bored and decided to lean against the wall. It was going smoothly until King Ratmouth used a fear spell on Valeros, (I rolled a 1 on the resistance to it) making him run away towards the entrance of the cave. This is when s@~% hit the fan. The goblins started pouring in and hit Ezren for some heavy damage. Kyra used an AOE heal which grew back the ear of the goblin. The goblins eventually killed Ezren, making him fall into the fountain.
Once Valeros was back to his senses he rushed back and started killing the Goblins, all but king Ratmouth which we forced to surrender.
In exchange for his life we took all his treasure, got information that Blackfang was a Dragon and where to find it, also that the water nearby was "bad water" and that when his subjects ever went into the room with the ruby they would "go poof!".
We let him go and decided to head straight to Black Fang as this was what we were hired for. I used my grappling hook to get up the wall, we saw the skelletons but avoided their detection... until Ezren came up and dropped some rocks, making the three skelletons attack!
The successfully killed Ezren and then Kyra and Valeros managed to finish them off. We revived Ezren and continued on our way. After a bit of sneaking we managed to see Black Fang and avoid his detection. And then for some reason I attribute to old age, Ezren decided to start telling us his backstory, he just started blabbing away until Black Fang heard us. He approached and told us to come out, I decided to try and talk our way through this since he was bigger than I expected. I tried to persuade him to make his lair somewhere else. He laughed it off and said he found us puny. I told him that if he did kill us, the town would just send more people to take him on I almost convinced him but I lost a diplomacy roll. For some reason I was the one doing all the talking even though I had the lowest diplomacy skill...
He decided to attack. I jumped down from the stairs and slashed down at him, butdid no damage to his scales. We fought at the bottom for a while as Ezren used magic on him and Kyra used buffs. When Ezren did a lot of damage he pulled his attention and shot acid at him, killing him in one strike. Kyra dragged Ezren's body away while I held him off, but he managed to get a bite in and almost killed me with one hit, so I started backing off up the stairs. Once at the top, Kyra started healing me and I landed some good hits in, so we decided to stay there a bit before retreating. We ended up in a bit of a stalemate, no one dealing damage to either. Kyra got bored and started leaning on the wall, and eventually Black Fang got bored and decided to fly away.
Mission complete! We gathered the loot and started making our way out, but taking the opposite hall. At the water, since I had the highest swimming skill I decided to check the chest myself. We checked the chest for magic but forgot to look into the water, so when I started swimming I got attacked by that horrible reef thing. I tried to swim back to the shore, but he got me with a claw and I could not move! Valeros almost died, but Kyra and Ezren managed to kill the beats before that happened. After a heal we continued to the statue... none of us could see anything on it except for a cryptic message about water.
When we got to the room with the spider webs, we all noticed the webs were large and may have been made by a larger creature. Ezren noped right the hell away from there... I lit a torch and threw it at the webs... but since they didn't all ignite as I hoped, I just lit another and started burning them one at a time. We opened the chest as I held guard with 3 webs still remaining. Kyra decided to check the room with the altar now, and after hearing the warning "APPROACH WITH HUMILITY AND LIVE" or something like that. I told him to stop and gave him one f my lizards, telling him to throw one at the altar. He did and everything lit up. But when the fire vanished we noticed the lizard was still unburnt. He decided to crawl and managed to effectively pick up the ruby.
They both crawled their way to the room with the fountain and made their way to the entrance... but Valeros wanted to see what the spider was about. He backed off into the room with the trap and shot arrows at the remaining webs, successfully drawing out the giant spider. Valeros rushed back and crawled under the trap and waited for the spider. As it approached he threw his second lizard onto the trap and activated it, killing the spider. Mission complete!!
I know we being noobs probably took a lot of liberties on the mechanics, but this was honestly a really good time.
With that, I have a few simple questions that I'm sure have been answered plenty, but the amount of info out there is a bit overwhelming so I'm going to ask some specific ones here.
What are some good technological aids that are considered must haves? I tried some apps for character sheets for my phone. I found Pathfinder CS which I'm not sure I understand 100%. Hero Lab looks great but you have to buy the PC one which is 30 bucks. If it's the best thing around I may consider it. For now I'm using mod neceros pathfinder character sheet and it seems good. There's also some online table sheets and stuff so just wonder what you all find a must have.
Thanks for reading!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Sounds like an absolutely fantastic game! Welcome to Pathfinder.

I've found that having printed character sheets works best. I just fill it in and then slide a plastic page protector over it during the game.

I can mark all the changes in wet erase markers and after the game make the permanent changes (gold added/spent, new equipment, weird stuff my character picked up along the way).

Look at the Hero Lab web page again. If I recall correctly, you can create characters there for free and just print out the final version.

From the web page

Non-Hero Lab users can download Hero Lab Starter Edition, which supports the Pathfinder Beginner Box and is free to all users as a separate application. You can check it out it at our downloads page.

Sovereign Court

That sounds like a fantastic game. My players split up and two were killed by Black Fang while another two fell to the reefclaw.
It's their own fault for refusing to talk to the goblin king :)


A very useful tool for me is the Android app Masterwork Tools: Pathfinder Open Reference. It's not all inclusive but it has many books, well sorted menu and its FREE

Scarab Sages

Also the PRD on this here very website is extremely useful, if a bit daunting in size.


The PRD is extremely useful, especially if you don't have access to a corebook. There are certainly plenty of options out there, it's just a matter of doing some research. Hero Lab and PC Gen help taking the mathematical portions out, but if you enjoy number crunching, then Myth Weavers is a good place to go for typing out sheets. But character sheets in protectors are amazing to have. As are index cards. You can have different index cards written out for different attacks with one or multiple weapons, they make wonderful spell books for sure, and they really just overall help organize things in such a great way. Technology can be very useful, but sometimes, old school methods are best when making things simple and un cumbersome.

Awesome game though by the way. A good game is always great to here when everyone has a fun time not just playing, but fleshing characters out even if that would have an impact on what happens in the game. I enjoy that and you had me laughing. I hope your group continues to have fun learning and playing the game!

Dark Archive

Just got my Beginners Box last week, although I didn't read the adventure till yesterday. The cardboard minis are nice, the map is awesome and I can see myself using it for several adventures. And overall the adventure feels good even for vet players. May need to ramp up a couple encounters for experienced players, but otherwise fine. Then there's the final encounter. What. The. Frell?! Who throws a dragon at a level one party? Especially a group running their first adventure? Usually you don't start using dragons till level 6 or so at least.

Even weakened, a young dragon is a likely party killer for a level 4 group. A level 1 group can easily be wiped just coming down the stairs. When I did a trial run of the encounter using a group of lev 1 characters it was brutal. Just going down the stairs is a good way for the party to die. And these weren't the simplified Beginner Box creation rules. This was a hydrokineticist, scythe fighter, spiritualist, and monk.

I probably would have used a spider swarm instead of single giant spider. And maybe another skeleton or two. I may swap the dragon for a troll or something so the party has a reasonable chance of not wiping on the first round.


The dragon is beatable with the given party in the box. It's designed to make the players work together as a group rather than have everyone just do their own thing because they think they know what to do. The party you created should be able to take it down, but unless they've been created to work in a group dynamic like the pregens are, then it'll be chaos trying to take it out.

Sovereign Court

Also, the dragon runs away if you hit it with the dragon bane sword.

You're not expected to kill it.

Scarab Sages

Remember....there are free follow-up adventures available here on Paizo's site, that utilize the same (or different) characters.

Dark Archive

Yeah, I can see how the dragon would be beatable with good tactics. But it's initial positioning makes simply approaching the fight near suicidal. And isn't the dragonbane weapon part of the treasure for that fight? The adventure looks rather good overall. And I could see using it with the full rules as a drop in adventure for a campaign. I've done similar with the old 2nd edition Beginners Box adventures.

Speaking of which, I need to finish converting those to pathfinder.

Dark Archive

KyleS wrote:
The dragon is beatable with the given party in the box. It's designed to make the players work together as a group rather than have everyone just do their own thing because they think they know what to do. The party you created should be able to take it down, but unless they've been created to work in a group dynamic like the pregens are, then it'll be chaos trying to take it out.

the party I ran through the dungeon as a playtest was designed around Kineticist: ranged striker, Spiritualist: healer/rogue (has open locks and disable devices as class skills), fighter as front line tank, and the monk as a melee combatant/mobile battle support.

It just seems like that's throwing a neophite into the deep end. Especially considering how famously sub-par the iconics are considered to be.

Sovereign Court

Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Yeah, I can see how the dragon would be beatable with good tactics. But it's initial positioning makes simply approaching the fight near suicidal. And isn't the dragonbane weapon part of the treasure for that fight? The adventure looks rather good overall. And I could see using it with the full rules as a drop in adventure for a campaign. I've done similar with the old 2nd edition Beginners Box adventures.

Speaking of which, I need to finish converting those to pathfinder.

Nope, you get it when you defeat the reefclaw.

The high wall before the skeletons is designed to encourage PCs to clear the first two-thirds of the dungeon before heading to the dragon.

So, full spells, dragon-bane weapon, ring of resistance... hit the dragon once with the fighter and you're heroes!

Dark Archive

GeraintElberion wrote:
Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Yeah, I can see how the dragon would be beatable with good tactics. But it's initial positioning makes simply approaching the fight near suicidal. And isn't the dragonbane weapon part of the treasure for that fight? The adventure looks rather good overall. And I could see using it with the full rules as a drop in adventure for a campaign. I've done similar with the old 2nd edition Beginners Box adventures.

Speaking of which, I need to finish converting those to pathfinder.

Nope, you get it when you defeat the reefclaw.

The high wall before the skeletons is designed to encourage PCs to clear the first two-thirds of the dungeon before heading to the dragon.

So, full spells, dragon-bane weapon, ring of resistance... hit the dragon once with the fighter and you're heroes!

SNERK

Okay, someone obviously doesn't know how random and unwise players can be. When I ran Confirmation at a convention, the guy playing a rogue was about to close a secret door, then destroy the means of opening said door so it can't be reopened... before they actually searched the hidden chamber. Thus they would have not gotten the clues they needed, and would have been incapable of getting the clues. Why? So he could bring Drendal Drang his (false) wine bottle. In short, they nearly failed the adventure before they even began it.


Oh crap!
I didn't even look at this after I assumed I wouldn't get any replies!

Just played my 4th session yesterday!


Quemius wrote:
Remember....there are free follow-up adventures available here on Paizo's site, that utilize the same (or different) characters.

What's the name of them? :D

Sovereign Court

Kahel Stormbender wrote:
GeraintElberion wrote:
Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Yeah, I can see how the dragon would be beatable with good tactics. But it's initial positioning makes simply approaching the fight near suicidal. And isn't the dragonbane weapon part of the treasure for that fight? The adventure looks rather good overall. And I could see using it with the full rules as a drop in adventure for a campaign. I've done similar with the old 2nd edition Beginners Box adventures.

Speaking of which, I need to finish converting those to pathfinder.

Nope, you get it when you defeat the reefclaw.

The high wall before the skeletons is designed to encourage PCs to clear the first two-thirds of the dungeon before heading to the dragon.

So, full spells, dragon-bane weapon, ring of resistance... hit the dragon once with the fighter and you're heroes!

SNERK

Okay, someone obviously doesn't know how random and unwise players can be. When I ran Confirmation at a convention, the guy playing a rogue was about to close a secret door, then destroy the means of opening said door so it can't be reopened... before they actually searched the hidden chamber. Thus they would have not gotten the clues they needed, and would have been incapable of getting the clues. Why? So he could bring Drendal Drang his (false) wine bottle. In short, they nearly failed the adventure before they even began it.

You missed my earlier post about my PCs splitting up and getting a TPK.

Sovereign Court

Unikatze wrote:
Quemius wrote:
Remember....there are free follow-up adventures available here on Paizo's site, that utilize the same (or different) characters.
What's the name of them? :D

Free resources here

Sovereign Court

Also, adventures to buy here.

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
GeraintElberion wrote:
Kahel Stormbender wrote:
GeraintElberion wrote:
Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Yeah, I can see how the dragon would be beatable with good tactics. But it's initial positioning makes simply approaching the fight near suicidal. And isn't the dragonbane weapon part of the treasure for that fight? The adventure looks rather good overall. And I could see using it with the full rules as a drop in adventure for a campaign. I've done similar with the old 2nd edition Beginners Box adventures.

Speaking of which, I need to finish converting those to pathfinder.

Nope, you get it when you defeat the reefclaw.

The high wall before the skeletons is designed to encourage PCs to clear the first two-thirds of the dungeon before heading to the dragon.

So, full spells, dragon-bane weapon, ring of resistance... hit the dragon once with the fighter and you're heroes!

SNERK

Okay, someone obviously doesn't know how random and unwise players can be. When I ran Confirmation at a convention, the guy playing a rogue was about to close a secret door, then destroy the means of opening said door so it can't be reopened... before they actually searched the hidden chamber. Thus they would have not gotten the clues they needed, and would have been incapable of getting the clues. Why? So he could bring Drendal Drang his (false) wine bottle. In short, they nearly failed the adventure before they even began it.

You missed my earlier post about my PCs splitting up and getting a TPK.

That was you? Yeah, splitting the party is a usually a really bad idea. Doubly so when in a dungeon. Heck, there's even a song about it. Although, even vet players can pull dumb stunts such as setting a wooden bridge on fire... while you're on it. Then running into the next room in a panic, thus triggering a nasty as all get out fire trap. Nearly creating a TPK and trapping one person (and the npc the group is escorting) on the other side of the now burning bridge.. with 2 bat swarms.


That sounds really specific there, I kinda wanna hear that story lol. And by the way, I finished up the Box with a group of new people over the weekend. I let the fight drag more than halfway though and with more than just one hit from the dragon bane. I was essentially trying to encourage group tactics which worked out well with the pregens. The fighter and rogue took it on while the wizard stayed away firing of magic missiles and the cleric stayed far enough away from the dragon to utilize the channel to keep the fighter alive. Worked out pretty well actually. I drug it out to 1/4 hp instead of half, and then on escape, the rogue got a crit on the aoo with enough damage and sneak attack to just straight up kill the dragon. They were pretty glad that their group effort pulled off despite how hard it was to hit the damn thing lol.

The Exchange

Sounds like you had fun!
Welcome to Partying Pathfinder style!


KyleS wrote:
That sounds really specific there, I kinda wanna hear that story lol. And by the way, I finished up the Box with a group of new people over the weekend. I let the fight drag more than halfway though and with more than just one hit from the dragon bane. I was essentially trying to encourage group tactics which worked out well with the pregens. The fighter and rogue took it on while the wizard stayed away firing of magic missiles and the cleric stayed far enough away from the dragon to utilize the channel to keep the fighter alive. Worked out pretty well actually. I drug it out to 1/4 hp instead of half, and then on escape, the rogue got a crit on the aoo with enough damage and sneak attack to just straight up kill the dragon. They were pretty glad that their group effort pulled off despite how hard it was to hit the damn thing lol.

Interestingly one of the things I like best about running games under the BB rules was that there are no AoO.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Ran another group last night. They ended up avoiding the reefclaw thinking that's where Black Fang was after seeing the chalk drawings, and ended up missing out on the ring of protection. So they get to Black Fang, and it ends up being a tough fight for them. Fighter keeps gettin taken out, the cleric just continues to stay on the verge of death, and the wizard is the only one doing damage thanks to magic missile. So the rogue, trying to figure out some sort of plan, keeps watching this unfold, knowing it was going to end horridly. So using his quote of the night "I've got a plan...", he ends up trying to run past the dragon. Gets taken out by an AoO. Cleric heals him, and then the fighter lands a decent hit. Dragon retaliates with a full round, dealing 25 points to the fighter, just out right killing the fighter. Rogue gets back up, using the fighter's untimely demise as a distraction, and just books it to the hoard. The wizard and cleric keep the dragon distracted, going down in the process and the rouge books it to the hoard, grabs the first thing he can, pops open the vial, and just chugs the potion. Ended up being the rogue that dropped the dragon to half to make it flee. I felt bad about almost having a TPK with the Box, but hearing them jump for joy at the rogue's (one and only hit by the way in the whole night) final bravado that ended up saving the party. The best part of it? He did it because he felt like it's what the character would do. Oh I was pleased lol.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

5 Years in! Still loving it!


Unikatze wrote:
5 Years in! Still loving it!

That's funny, we started at pretty much the same time. Two campaigns later, some faces have changed, campaign style is different, but we are looking forward for the next 5 years... :)


Hopefully not still using the beginners box? :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

We've had lots of ups and downs. The Cleric in the game I described above turned out to be one of the worst players ever.

We continued the campaign as a Homebrew in Sandpoint. We were playing pretty regularly until I went on vacation. I made a story for Valeros being absent for a while, but turns out they never played when I was gone, and when I got back the GM never wanted to play, so that campaign died there.

Then Cleric wanted to GM. So we all made characters, but he never prepared anything, so we ended up using those characters in a new Homebrew campaign made by the original GM, Introduced a new player I had never met who's now a very close friend and I'm the Godfather of his new daughter.
This campaign took place in the Land of the Linnorm Kings and was pretty awesome.
We played it up to level 7, and then again it became very hard to get the GM to actually set up games and it died off.
I decided to try my hand at GMing.

I GMed Hollow's Last Hope, which went absolutely terrible. I was a little late and two of the players had started drinking. Worst game I've ever played and I almost quit GMing right then and there, but we finished it.
I then ran Rise of the Runelords, but only got to Book 2. This was the last time I played with the guy who played the Cleric in the Beginner Box... he was just awful. I also introduced a new player who was also pretty terrible for more personal out of character reasons.

After that it was mostly on and off one offs. We tried to play Mummy's Mask with the original GM, but in true fashion, she never called us for a second game.

The original player who played Ezren and I started dating and have been together for just under 5 years now (she's also the Godmother of that baby I mentioned earlier), she tried to GM Crypt of the everflame for an entirely new group. And was an amazing GM when she actually prepared. But must have kind of lost interest after two sessions because she ended up just going to the games to hang out and the story never moved forward.

I started GMing Dragon's Demand for some of those players, but only got to chapter 2.

Then PF2 released and I was ready to make the jump.
I had met a new guy who's heavily into TTRPGs and had been looking for a game to join for literal years.
Since I was bored of being the GM, he agreed to GM Age of Ashes for me and the other friend (the one who's daughter is my Goddaughter) since we were the more hardcore players.

The game was usually great until alcohol got involved, but it was still fine. When COVID hit the game got put on hold, and the other player lost interest even though we tried to keep playing in Tabletop Simulator. We finished Book 1.

After a bit when some restrictions started lifting I GMed Fall of Plaguestone for a new group, the GM of AoA and my Girlfriend.
This is the first campaign I actually ever finished.
We've now moved their characters into the AoA book2 campaign and have been playing that regularily.

So yeah, not still the Beginner Box :P

Owner/operator - Railyard Games

OK...here goes...New retailer posting after playing himself in first Beginner's Box game last night as "Valeros" and loving it...btw...I'm basically a retired person..but run this games store on Vancouver Island, Western Canada...(in case your mapping skills are poor!)

I've done a bit of rp gaming...not a lot of D&D...but couple of sessions and much much prefer PF....played last night with couple of young 30 year olds (very experienced with D&D--but first timers for PG)....

My question posted here in April 2022....is what adventures should I carry in my store for early players and their DM's??? I have 2E rulebook now, character sheets, bestiary, and couple of adventures..but looking for more input on what to stock? Thought I'd come to those who play...

Oh yes...first game as player...(1) rat (1) spider (1) zombie and (1) other something or other..(forget cause I'm old!!!)...like a goblin but I think not... Gained lots of experience that our DM announced after every encounter...so really liked that part...

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Paizo Products / Beginner Box / First adventure with a bunch of RPG noobies! All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Beginner Box